


Red and Black

by BadBlond099



Series: Jason Todd; Teen Titan? [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bipolar Disorder, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Foster Care, Implied Underage Sex, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jason Todd is Jason Napier, Multiple Personality Disorder, Not-so-prescription drug use, Other, Prescription Drug Use, Sociopathy, The Talented Mr Ripley - Freeform, Titus Andronicus - Freeform, Violence, literature references, or at least he tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:41:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22473520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadBlond099/pseuds/BadBlond099
Summary: What if Jason wasn't the right person to be Robin?What if Bruce adopted him anyways, thinking he could do good?This is an AU where Jason Napier makes his mark on Gotham City and sees to it that Batman faces just as many challenges with his family as he does with the scum of the city.There will always be a Joker.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, Jason Todd/Helena Wayne-Kyle, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Series: Jason Todd; Teen Titan? [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1547974
Comments: 8
Kudos: 32





	1. Working the System

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! This fic is loosely connected to "Probation" for now, but will be important to the story in the future. That being said, reading this is optional if you're reading "Probation" and reading "Probation" is optional for reading this.
> 
> Point being, they're connected, but separate. Read either at your own leisure. Please note that the rating is different, though. Because of this, I won't get into explicit details when the darker stuff happens, but know that this will get dark. The universe in its entirety is supposed to be a dark and twisted way that role has been changed for Jason and Helena.
> 
> Aaand before I rant too long, I hope you enjoy my latest twisted work!

Jason was, by all appearances, a perfectly normal kid. Considering everything that he had been through, some would even say that he was too normal.

His parents weren’t worth mentioning. Typical victims of the chaos of Gotham, or that’s what the officers said when they picked Jason up from school one day in the middle of class. They delivered the news and he didn’t have a single tear to offer. His parents were gone, and he would go on to be cared for by someone else.

No big deal.

The officers seemed to think his lack of emotional reaction spoke to something weird about his state of mind, but it was Gotham. They were busy. It was more important that they get him registered with child protective services and get back to their job scooping up whatever costumed crazy Batman left for them to find next.

Child services had a hard time placing him. Teenage boys weren’t a hot item for adoption, he supposed. Some of the boys in the system had been there for a long time. They’d act out, cause problems, fight with the foster homes that they were placed in. None of it made any sense to him, and the other boys didn’t like that. They’d direct their rage at him. Blame him for things that were obviously not his fault. They’d yell at him, hit him, tie him up, whatever suited their fancy. And thus, week after week, he was passed from house to house.

One of his last foster mothers had found him tied to the radiator in the bedroom, hand pressed flush to the scalding metal, with cuts on his face and legs. She told the social worker that she hadn’t thought anything of the boys playing together and was only passing by the room when she found him. He hadn’t cried out throughout the whole thing. As bad as she felt, she told the social worker that she was more afraid of him than the boys who had hurt him.

It was that visit to the main social services office that he first saw her.

Long, wavy hair, as black as night, draped over her face as her whole body shook. Her skin was sickly pale, and she cradled her right arm to her chest. Something about her demeanor caught his attention. The sound of her sobs called out to him. It was enough to make him ask the social worker who she was.

“Helena? You know, she’s about your age.”

That was all he got out of the man, but he wanted to know more. He wanted to understand what had happened to her to make her cry like that.

When the child service employees were scrambling through contacts, trying to find the next place to send him, he found a file on the desk near the crying girl and flipped it open. No one said a word to him, so he thumbed through its contents.

Her name was Helena Kyle, born to Selina Kyle who gave her up for adoption.

She had been adopted when she was a toddler by the mayor; Harvey Dent.

She had been back to the office more often than Jason for various injuries consistent with domestic abuse.

As far as the file showed, no action was taken to rectify her situation.

“Who’s in charge of Hel?”

“Ugh. It’s Carl’s day.”

“Dent wants her on medication for ADD. Says she doesn’t focus well.”

“She focuses just fine!”

“Says not to bother bringing her home ‘til she’s medicated.”

“Damnit. We can’t keep her here. Just get her to the medic and get her home.”

The girl looked up, the dark curtain of her hair falling away from her face, and her icy blue eyes locked on Jason pleadingly. He just held up his burnt hand and shrugged. She seemed shocked, though he wasn’t sure why. Was she surprised that he was hurt? Was she surprised that he didn’t help her? What was he supposed to do?

“Here. There’s a foster house willing to take you, Jason. It’s not too far away. You ready to go?”

He looked back at his social worker and shrugged. It was a little weird that the burns on his hand hadn’t been treated, but if he didn’t complain, they wouldn’t even think to bother with it. He looked back to Helena one last time as she fought tooth and nail with the men who tried to move her, doing all that she could to stay there in spite of her obvious injury.

Child protective services, he noted, wasn’t doing a great job of protecting Helena. Given her situation, he wouldn’t be surprised if he saw her again.

The social worker took him to a large house that had a strangely gothic feel to it. Out front was a large sign that read: ‘Ma Gunn’s School for Boys’.

“It’s a school,” Jason pointed out to the social worker. He hadn’t been to school in a long time; not since he was taken from class upon the news of his parents’ deaths.

“Ma Gunn runs a boarding school,” he explained. “Lots of foster boys fall into her care here. She’ll take care of you now. Do me a favor and don’t start anything with the other boys. We’re running out of foster homes for you.”

Jason wasn’t sure why anyone thought he ever initiated the problems that the other boys in the system had with him.

An elderly woman with a nose that reminded Jason of a vulture opened the door with an enthusiastic boy at her side.

“Welcome.” Her eyes were deeply set with crow’s feet, betraying years of smiling all pressed into the corners. “You must be Jason,” she said, adding another smile’s worth of crinkling to the rest.

The social worker shook hands and went over the standard stuff he was obligated to. He explained the situation that Jason had come from, explained the problems that had caused him to be passed from one home to the next, and explained every other minute detail of Jason’s life since his parents’ passing like it was a laundry list of misfortune that would have to be overlooked in order for him to have a normal life. The woman, Faye Gunn—or ‘Ma’ as the boy referred to her—never once let the smile leave her face as the social worker prattled on.

“I’m sure things have been difficult, but here I only want the best for my boys. Just take little Johnny here.” She put a protective hand on the enthusiastic boy’s shoulder. “He went through four foster homes before he came to me, and now it’s been three years and he’s truly like a son to me.”

“I know that you’ll like it here,” Johnny said. It was aimed at Jason, but still felt to him like it was added for the purpose of satisfying the social worker, who ate it right up.

“Well, I know I’m leaving him in good hands. You know the number if you need anything,” the social worker added as a little means of washing his hands of the situation while keeping up appearances. “Thank you for taking him.” He seemed happy to be out of there quickly, not even worried about living conditions or anything.

Jason was still reeling from the evening. The boys treating him like an unwanted dog, beating him and tying him to the radiator, wasn’t anything unusual. It barely even bothered him. The burn was a little frustrating, but if no one else was going to patch him up, why would he worry? Being dragged from house to office to house was a little annoying, but it had afforded him the opportunity to meet someone who actually piqued his interest. After all, his parents hadn’t had a say in his situation. They died and that was that. But Helena? Her mother chose to give her up and the man who had adopted her was clearly not taking good care of her. Her story struck something in Jason that he wasn’t used to. Something that he wanted to explore.

Hardly a moment after the social worker closed the door behind himself, ‘little Johnny’ punched Jason square in the nose.

“Hate dealing with noobs like you, acting like you’re special!” He knocked Jason to the ground and stepped on his abdomen, not even hesitating to put his weight behind it. Jason grunted and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting to feel the sensation of a rib cracking.

“That’s enough, Johnny! I’ll take it from here.”

“Aww, c’mon Ma! We don’t need a runt like this slowing us down. Just lemme put him out of our misery.”

SLAP!

Johnny stumbled backwards, cupping his face where the elderly woman had struck him hard enough to cut his cheek with one of the many rings that adorned her bony fingers. “I do NOT take backtalk, boy! You’ve served your purpose! Now leave us!”

The boy bobbed his head in a frightened bow, all of his temporary bravado nowhere to be seen, and scurried off into the house like a whipped dog.

Jason let his head fall back on the floor so that he was lying flat. He didn’t feel like thanking the woman. What had she changed anyways? If the boys there were able to be that violent in front of her, he was in for another troublesome foster situation. He figured he’d be gone in a week.

“Jason, was it? Get up.”

“I’m fine right here, thanks,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.

“I’m not asking.” The end of her cane slammed down on his burnt hand, making him tense and open his eyes, but he remained in place.

“Haven’t had a lot of foster parents who initiated the abuse,” he noted, looking at her. “Seems like you foster violent tendencies in your boys too. Are you going to kill me?”

Ma Gunn clicked her tongue but removed her cane from his hand. “You’re unusual, boy. Are you even able to feel pain?”

He sat up and looked at the striped burns on his hand. Where she had pressed her cane to it the blisters had popped, and a cloudy pink liquid oozed out. “Sure. Who doesn’t? I just don’t see how complaining about it changes anything.

She scoffed and grabbed his wrist. For an older woman, her grip was vice-like. She pulled him up to his feet and dragged him down a couple halls, ignoring the curious looks of the other boys who watched as they passed. No one dared get in her way as she took him up a flight of stairs, through a master bedroom, and into a large bathroom. “Sit.” She let go of him and opened a medicine cabinet.

“I didn’t say I needed anything for—”

“Sit!”

He rolled his eyes and took a seat on the edge of the bathtub. He looked down at his wrist to find a hand shaped bruise had formed where she’d clung to him. He remembered a book his father had stolen from the library…something about a tollbooth, whatever those were. In the book there had been a strange place where everything seemed darker and drearier. The Doldrums, if he remembered right. And the inhabitants there weren’t sinister. They weren’t mean. They were simply there, hidden amongst the dull scenery. Jason had liked that book. It was unusual. Everything meant something else. It forced him to think. And, in his childish headspace, he’d always imagined the inhabitants of the Doldrums as spindly looking creatures that would grab you at any chance and drag you down to their level of ennui.

“Lethargarians,” he mumbled, a bit bemused with himself for remembering something like that when he couldn’t even remember the title of the book.

“Speak up, boy. I don’t care for mumbling.”

“You blend into the atmosphere so well that no one notices you, and you drag down others who have let their minds go idle.”

“What are you blathering on about?”

He shrugged. “You remind me of a book.”

“Oh great. He reads.” She found a dark brown bottle and moved to the tub to sit next to him. “Thinking isn’t something that’s appreciated around here.”

Jason nodded. “Yep. No thinking in the Doldrums.”

She took his burnt hand in hers and then proceeded to drag her long nails along the lines of blisters, slowly popping each one, opening them up to leak more blood and puss. Jason winced, but didn’t bother to take his hand away.

Instead he watched the disgusting spectacle with mild curiosity. He’d thought she had brought him there to take care of the injury, but perhaps that was too presumptuous. She had hurt him, after all, and the people who hurt him didn’t often try to undo the damage.

“Aren’t you going to cry?”

“Would that make you happy?” he asked in reply.

She just scoffed and picked the brown bottle back up, taking the cap off. “Over the tub. And don’t you start complaining now.”

He did as he was told, and she began pouring the clear liquid contents of the bottle over the burns. Jason sucked in a breath and his whole body jerked as the open wounds sizzled and burned more than he remembered. His jaw set as the searing sensation overwhelmed him, but he did his best to keep still in her hold and he continued to watch the process. When she stopped pouring, the burning didn’t go away. Instead the open wounds bubbled and hissed as if they were alive. “What is that?” he finally ventured to ask, taking his mind off of the pain to assuage his fascination.

“Rubbing alcohol,” she told him. “Stings like a bitch, doesn’t it?” She smiled, though it faded a little at Jason’s lack of response. “It’ll help to disinfect open wounds. That burn was looking nasty. Left like that, who knows what sort of bacteria was getting in. In a couple of days, I’d have a sickly kid on my hands and that’s a bigger pain than a lively one.”

With the pain still ever-present and yet somewhat forgotten, he fell completely still and watched the sizzling with growing fascination. Perhaps, like that tollbooth story, this had a different meaning as well. A worse pain to help a previous pain. In spite of the harsh way that she treated him, she really was helping. It was strange how things could have a dual meaning like that.

“You’re an unusual one, alright.” She proceeded to turn the bath water on and moved his hand so that it was under the cold water. The searing sensation was replaced instantly with a biting chill. “Most boys break down the moment they see what’s really going on here. Hell, Johnny cried for three days straight. But you don’t even seem to think we’re a mild inconvenience.”

Jason shrugged. “Would you be happy if I did?”

“You keep asking that. What does it matter what other people feel? For example, I run a boarding school for foster boys. That’s what the world sees. What they don’t know is that I teach these boys tricks so that they can steal things for me. I don’t care what makes them happy, so long as they’re making me happy.”

“But you care to keep the world happy,” he pointed out, “by maintaining that front and making social workers think they’re sending boys someplace that’ll mean less work for them. And I’ll bet the boys here do what they can to keep you happy because if they don’t, there’s some sort of punishment involved.”

She cackled a little at that explanation. “So, the world keeps spinning if everyone’s kept happy then, is that it? Well then, Jason, what makes you happy?”

For a brief moment he thought of the girl back at the office. He couldn’t fathom what about her had piqued his interest, or what about her tragic situation could make him feel anything, but all the same, he felt a twinge of…excitement. “There’s a girl…”

“Tch! Men. Such simple-minded creatures.” She took his hand out from the water and dried it before wrapping it with gauze. She then continued to tend to the cuts on his face—even resetting his nose from the punch he’d taken from Johnny earlier—cleaning him up until he was covered in little bandages and smelled faintly of rubbing alcohol. “Alright then. Go introduce yourself to the boys. Do me a favor though, and don’t let them beat you up. It’s a pain to have to patch you or any of those twits up.”

“You’d be happier if I wasn’t injured anymore?”

“That’s right. Now git! Boys’ll already think you got special treatment. What was I thinking, bringing you up to my room?”

Jason made his way back to the first floor were most of the boys in the house were waiting for him, all backing Johnny who had apparently gotten over his slap.

“This is the new kid then?”

“What’s he doing up in Ma’s room?”

“Maybe she likes his face. Old bag’s gotta get her jellies somewhere.”

The standard insults. Nothing he hadn’t heard before. “Can you show me where I’ll be staying?” he asked no one in particular. “If not, well, I’ve been asked not to get hurt anymore, so it might be in your best interest to just leave me alone.”

“Ha! ‘Course you’re gonna get hurt! It’s time for your initiation!”

One of the boys caught his wrist where Ma Gunn’s bruise was and tried to pull him aside. Jason just leaned back, pulled the boy in close, and punched him in the throat. The boy stumbled backwards wheezing and gasping for air. The boys around him all backed away, watching the boy choke with rising concern.

“Do you think Ms. Gunn will be upset if he doesn’t have any injuries she can treat?” Jason asked the others. He was met with mixed reactions. Most of the boys kept their distance from him. Johnny and a few of the bigger ones didn’t take the hint, though, and figured they’d do better as long as they ganged up on him.

That, as it would turn out, was the first night that Jason would take a life.

Most of the boys he was able to stop without too much injury to their person. A dislocated jaw here and there, blown eardrums, and some cracked ribs maybe, but nothing that Ma Gunn would be able to treat with the contents of her medicine cabinet.

But Johnny wouldn’t give up, and the size difference between the two of them was difficult to get past. Jason had just blown the boy’s eardrums when Johnny backed him into a glass display shelf, shattering it so that glass rained over them. He could feel a dull pain in his back where he’d broken through the glass and blood dripped from his arm where little cuts had been made.

He had been injured. A dark fury grew inside of him and he found an alternative to Ma Gunn using her medicine cabinet on Johnny.

Jason picked up a jagged piece of glass and shoved it right into his attacker’s chest.

The sensation was strange and not at all like he’d imagined it would be. Though logically he knew about skeletons, he hadn’t anticipated hitting one.

Johnny stumbled backwards in shock, large chunk of glass sticking out of his chest, and the boys all screamed and made space as he looked about fearfully for someone to show some sympathy and help him. He collapsed, still breathing and still bleeding, making more of a mess than Jason had wanted, further frustrating him. He stepped over Johnny, making sure the boy was lying flat on his back as he looked down at him.

“Hate dealing with rubes like you,” Jason spat, smiling to himself as another odd character from the tollbooth story came to mind. He lifted one foot up and brought it down with all of his weight on the chunk of glass.

He could feel Johnny’s sternum giving out under the pressure, breaking and allowing the foreign object to pass through and lodge into his still beating heart.

“That’s enough of that.”

Ma Gunn parted the boys in order to reach Jason and Johnny in the middle of the hallway. “Well you’ve certainly made one hell of a mess, young man.”

Jason took another cursory glance at Johnny’s lifeless form and shrugged. “You won’t have to patch him up at least.”

She cackled, making the boys who were already cowering shake and whimper. “You certainly are different. Now come on. Let’s get this cleaned up. Don’t want to make any extra work for the social workers.”

***** 

Running errands for Ma Gunn gave Jason something to do. She wasn’t the worst foster parent he’d had. After all, she never neglected her boys. She made sure that each and every one of them knew exactly how she felt about them and gave them more attention than Jason’s parents ever paid him. She could be a little unorthodox and the boys could be unruly, but after she had the whole house help in the disposal of Johnny’s body, they didn’t bother Jason, and that was a nice change from the usual boys who took pleasure in making him suffer.

Nicer still was that Ma Gunn would reward him when he did well. The first reward he earned was an old copy of The Phantom Tollbooth, which he read zealously, glad to finally understand the almost dreamlike parallels to real life that Ma Gunn’s school had reminded him of. The next reward he earned was more of a tome; an old copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s works had proved more difficult and, for a while, Jason figured he could draw no amusement from his plays. Then Gunn got him a second book that was supposed to help with translating Shakespeare’s style of writing.

That was the key he needed to unlock a very different world.

To Jason, Shakespeare was a man of deep-set humanity. His depictions were raw in nature. They mocked the mighty and the fool alike. And, upon rereading the more difficult plays, he found that there was one in particular that could always make something stir within him.

It took some careful action on his part, but he convinced Ma Gunn to make his next reward a copy of his favorite of Shakespeare’s plays that came with page by page translation notes. After chiding him for not going after something new, she had agreed only if he found her something spectacular that night.

Upon passing by his childhood home back in Gotham’s notoriously nicknamed ‘Crime Alley,’ he found the perfect payoff; the iconic Batmobile, parked and waiting for someone to come by and take it for a joy ride.

Of course, the whole vehicle wouldn’t be worth much to Gunn. Anything too conspicuous would cast suspicion and suspicion meant problems for Ma Gunn’s School for Boys. But there were pictures that people could use to reference the fact that the custom tires were genuine, and Jason’s specialty was snatching tires and any other car parts that could be of value.

He wasn’t stupid, though. Batman was supposed to be this great, terrifying crusader with enough intelligence to put an entire league of superpowered freaks to shame. Surely a man like that would have his car rigged in case he left it somewhere and someone wanted to check it out. 

Jason picked up a discarded shoe that had been left in the alleyway and threw it at the hood of the car only to watch it take a shock and get sent flying.

“Tch. Is that all?” He went half a block away and used his trusted tire iron to pry the back of an old car open. No luck there, but a few cars later he found what he was looking for: a few sets of jumper cables. It didn’t take much dumpster digging to find a couple of used car batteries to work with. He took his find back to the alley, glad that the car hadn’t moved, and proceeded to latch the cables each to a single battery before connecting the other ends carefully to various parts of the Batmobile that he could clip them onto. Upon connecting the first battery he could all but see the charge being redirected. After connecting three more, however, the process became quieter. Subtler.

To check his work, he tossed a rock this time and smiled upon seeing it scratch the pristine black surface of the hood without getting launched.

Time to get to work.

He carried a few things on him to make sure he was prepared for most situations that someone in his line of work might encounter. He slung the bag off his shoulder and proceeded to take out a small carjack. He set it up and lifted the Batmobile only as much as absolutely necessary, then proceeded to use his tire iron to reap his reward. It didn’t take him that long. He prided himself on the efficient way that he could handle these menial tasks Ma Gunn assigned.

“Unbelievable.”

He scrambled to his feet and held his tire iron ready to take down the intruder only to find that he’d been caught by the Bat himself. He glanced back at the stack of three tires he’d already managed to remove. It wouldn’t be difficult to get two at a time back to the house, but he had hoped to get all four free before bothering to deliver any. Now he wished he’d started with the two.  
“Put. Them. Back.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “And if I don’t?”

The eyes under the cowl narrowed and Jason found himself feeling pinned under their gaze.

“What could you possibly want with those?”

He shrugged. “I don’t want anything to do with them. But if I bring them home to Ma, she promised me a book.”

That seemed to make Batman’s conviction waver. “A…book?”

“I like books. So what?”

Batman sighed. He actually sighed. Jason had known for a while that the vigilante wasn’t superpowered, but upon meeting him there was a strange disconnect from the man he’d imagined and the man before him. The dark knight of Gotham City was supposed to be a sort of invincible monster. The sort of thing you’d find in a cautionary story, meant to scare people out of even considering something. This guy? He was just…human. Some weirdo dressed like an overgrown bat. The realization was enough to make Jason smile.

“Your mother shouldn’t be in need of stolen tires.”

“Not my mother,” Jason replied quickly.

“You said—”

“Ma Gunn. She takes care of me.”

“She sends you out to steal pieces off of cars?”

Jason shrugged. “Among other things.” Telling Batman all of this was a risky move and he knew it. But he wasn’t afraid of this man. He wasn’t worried. And frankly, he was curious. “Not like anyone’s going to stop her from teaching her boys the ways of the world.”

Batman’s exposed jaw set, and Jason knew that he had the man right where he wanted him.

“Tell you what. You get me the book I want and find me a new foster home while you’re at it and maybe I’ll tell you where to find her. Might even help you to bring her down, if that’s what you want to do.”

Batman jumped at the offer. “Lead away, kid.”

Jason’s mouth quirked up slightly. “Jason, actually.”

“Jason…You know…it would be easier to get there if I could drive.”

Jason scoffed. “Pretty desperate to get your car working again. How do I know you won’t just drive off the moment I put them back on?”

Batman took something out of a pocket in his belt and Jason was taken back. The vigilante handed him four batarangs. They were pristine. Sharp. They’d run up a fortune if sold to the right buyer. They might even be more valuable than the Batmobile’s tires.

“I’ll keep my word. Do this and you won’t have to steal anymore.”

Jason tucked the batarangs carefully into his duffel bag and said, “Would that make you happy?”

“What?”

He spun the tire iron around once in his hand before getting down onto his knees and tightening the bolts on the one remaining tire. “Would it make you happy if I stopped stealing for Ma Gunn?”

“More than anything.” Though his voice lacked emotion, it was all that Jason needed to hear. He undid all of the work he’d done, stopping at the end to watch Batman removing the jumper cables and examining each one. “Did you do this?”

“Sure. Your car would have fried me otherwise.”

“The charge it gives off is non-lethal.”

“You get my point.”

Batman cast the cables aside and pressed a hidden button on his left gauntlet that made the hood of the car peel back. “Get in.”

Jason whistled. “Bet the other boys haven’t even dreamed of this.” He put his tire iron back in his bag and tossed it into the Batmobile before hopping over the side and sliding into the passenger seat. “This must be where Robin sits,” he commented, looking about curiously.

“Don’t touch anything,” Batman said, settling into his seat behind the wheel. “Where is Ma Gunn’s?”

Jason gave the address as he’d learned it, and to his disappointment, the trip was stupidly short. Batman leapt out the moment the sign was within view and went right to work, shutting Jason back inside of the car.

He didn’t like being left in there. He wanted to watch Batman fight off Ma Gunn’s little army of misguided youths. He wanted to see the look of betrayal that would be on Gunn’s face upon discovering that he'd sold her out to Batman.

It was a pleasure he wasn’t afforded. Unable to figure out how to get the car to open up (in fact, unable to get any of the controls to respond to him), he had no choice but to sit back and watch it all from afar. He was there for maybe an hour before the first police cars pulled up. He watched Batman lead Gunn out himself and an officer slapped a pair of cuffs on her and roughly forced her into the back of a squad car. A small part of Jason would miss her. She was the first person, after all, to even bother to ask what he wanted. But the fact was, what he wanted now, she couldn’t get him.

When the hood opened up again and Batman settled into his seat, Jason stubbornly stared straight ahead.

“I’m taking you to child services.”

“Shouldn’t you be taking me to the bookstore?”

“I’ll settle it with your new foster home.”

“You don’t even know what book I want.”

“You should be happy you’re getting a book at all.”

Jason scowled. “I had books there. Books, clothes, and even a bed. You’re seriously going to dump me somewhere with what, your word and four weapons sharp enough to pop your tires the next time I come across this tin can?”

“I saw our deal through. You won’t have to steal anymore.”

Jason leaned back in his seat. “Yeah. I’m sure there aren’t any other foster homes that abuse the kids they take in like Ma Gunn did.”

“Just trust me, Jason. Your life is going to change.”

Batman all but left him on the doorstep of the child services office. He kept his bag slung over his shoulder and sighed. Now he had no choice but to hope that Batman actually cared about what happened to him, otherwise he’d just given up the cushiest option he’d be likely to get.

“Jason! How’d you…when did you get here?” Jason could recognize the old social worker who’d left him at Ma Gunn’s school almost a year ago. “No. Never mind. I heard what happened with Ma Gunn’s school. The other boys are back in the system as well, but they’re going to Juvie for a spell. You weren’t there though. Were you part of her schemes?”

Jason shrugged. “Not like I had much choice.”

The man pinched the top of his nose and nodded. “Right. Right. Okay. I’ll see what I can do for you. You might have to spend a night or two here. There’s a couple of kids around. Just…try not to scare them or anything.”

For a brief moment Jason was taken back to the time when he’d last been to the office. The crying girl with the weird circumstances. Helena. He hadn’t thought about her in a while, but she still occupied his mind every time he did. It would be too perfect if she happened to be back there at the same time that he was. Such coincidences simply didn’t happen…

And yet, upon stepping into the back office where some of the kids in question would sit around with nothing to occupy them but outdated magazines intended for people with different kinds of problems (‘How To Lose Weight In Your Sleep,’ ‘She’s Keeping The Baby And Leaving Her Man,’ ‘Increase Your Libido With These Four Simple Steps’), there she was, pressed as far back into the corner as she could get. She wasn’t crying this time. In fact, her whole demeanor seemed different from what he could remember.

“Helena?”

He supposed they hadn’t actually spoken before, so there was really no reason for her to remember him. It might even seem weird that he was able to address her by name, but he didn’t really care. He was, however, a little disappointed by the fact that she didn’t respond to him.

“I…we met once,” he tried again, settling into a chair nearby. “Maybe you don’t remember.”

“Your hand.”

He stiffened in his seat. She didn’t even bother to look at him.

“That was a long time ago. Shouldn’t it be healed?” she went on.

Jason looked at the bandages he still wore wrapped around his right hand. “It…did.” The bandages were more ornamental now. The burns had scarred pretty deeply. It wasn’t a sense of vanity that pushed him to hide it, however. In fact, the scar itself fascinated him. It was more that he wanted to keep it to himself. That mark wasn’t from anything particularly memorable. The injury hadn’t made him feel anything but the immediate pain. The steps Ma Gunn had taken to fix him were perhaps symbolic, but they weren’t anything more than the plights of a madwoman. And yet, the scar felt important to him just the same.

“I got it the night my parents died,” he lied. “A strange man came into our house and…he asked me where my parents were. I thought that…maybe…maybe they knew him.” It wasn’t as hard as he thought, telling her these things. Lies, he’d been told, were supposed to be bad. They were supposed to be difficult. But now, spinning a completely false tale of his own, he found that they were the simplest thing. Even better: they were useful.

Helena looked right at him, those dreamily familiar blue eyes looking deep into a part of him that simply didn’t exist. “He…hurt them?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he replied, knowing that she’d connect the dots however she wanted to. “He hurt me. What he did to them…it wasn’t something you can hide under a bandage.”

Helena straightened up, looking less like the haunted girl hiding from the world that she was not seconds before and looking more like a curious child, not worried so much as interested in Jason’s story. “Why did he let you…you know?”

Jason weaved the story as finely as a spider weaving its web. He told her lies about how the man made him watch. How his parents had begged for mercy. Begged for his own safety to be ensured. How none of it mattered in the end as the man slit their throats and let them bleed out on the carpet.

“I’m so sorry,” Helena muttered, taking Jason’s bandaged hand in hers. He noted, in that moment, how warm her hands were. He found himself taken by that warmth. The desire to be engulfed in it growing like a cancer in his stomach. “You’re so strong. You’re still here. It’s okay.”

Jason took sick pleasure in knowing how she’d suffered, and yet there she was, telling HIM things would be okay.

“Napier?”

Jason looked up, the serenity of the moment he was sharing with Helena broken as the social worker entered the room and towered over them.

“There’s someone here to see you.”

Jason kissed Helena’s knuckles before they parted, a silent promise that he would see her again soon.

Waiting for him in the main office was a man that anyone in Gotham would recognize.

“Hello Jason.”

Jason’s spine tingled at the dulcet tone of the billionaire’s voice. The way that his jaw moved was hauntingly familiar.

“Jason Napier, this is Bruce Wayne. He’s chosen to adopt you.”

Adoption. No one had bothered since he’d gone into the system. “What, he like what he sees or something?”

Bruce cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable in the way that Jason handled the situation. “I’m aware of what happened earlier today with Ma Gunn’s School for Boys. I admire your temerity. To have come out of that situation the way that you have, it reminds me of myself at your age.”

Jason crossed is arms but chose not to push it further. “I guess I’m yours then.”

There was a slight smile that came across Bruce’s face that felt haunting in a different way. Those icy blue eyes gleamed in the dim light and, for a strange moment, the warmth that had lingered with him from Helena stirred.

He dismissed it and kept to himself as Bruce and the social worker handled the final steps before Bruce was allowed to take him home.

“It’s weird,” Jason said, breaking the silence on the ride to the outskirts of the city. “I met Batman tonight. Made him promise to do a couple of things for me.”

“Yes. He and I…we spoke.”

Jason rolled his eyes. It seemed childish to pretend that he didn't recognize that jaw and the way the man carried himself, but if the game kept Bruce happy, he could play it for now. “Right. Guess that handles where I’ll lay my head. It doesn’t take care of the other thing though.”

“Yes. He did mention that you have an affinity for literature. I think I can handle that.”

They didn’t say another word for the rest of the drive and that suited Jason just fine. He’d been allowed to keep his duffel bag if only because the social worker had never bothered to check what was in it. Upon Bruce parking the car in an underground garage full of numerous hotrods and vintage vehicles, he snatched the bag before Jason could get to it.

“Hey!”

“You have supplies to work on cars.” Bruce more stated than asked. “They can stay in the garage then.”

Jason didn’t bother to argue with that. After all, he hadn’t anticipated Batman being quite so well off.

They finally made their way into the mansion and Jason was awestruck. Ma Gunn’s school had been large compared to anything else Jason had known, but that hardly seemed like it’d take up much room on the first floor of Wayne Manor.

“Welcome home, Jason.”

“You have got to be shitting me,” Jason muttered, struck dumb by the sheer enormity of the place.

“Language, sir.” An older Englishman joined them, bowing slightly upon seeing Jason. “Welcome, Master Jason.”

Jason clapped his hands together eagerly. “This is…I mean, I can’t imagine it’ll last, but it’s pretty damned cool.”

“I’m sorry. Why wouldn’t this last?” the Englishman inquired.

“I’m a teenage foster kid. You do the math,” he said passively. “But seriously. Last place I was at, it was a fight to see who got one of the beds. I never lost, of course, but still.”

The Englishman sighed before offering a hand to Jason. “Well, I am Alfred Pennyworth, and I will do what I can to see to it that you don’t feel a stranger in this house.”

“House? This ain’t a house, Alf.”

Alfred cleared his throat and Bruce put a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Jason here is a fan of literature, or so I’m told. Perhaps he would feel a little more at home in the library?” he suggested.

Alfred nodded and took the lead. “Of course. Follow me, Master Jason. I will show you to your room and to the library.”

Jason looked back at Bruce for a moment, waiting for approval. A slight nod was all he got, so he followed the Englishman upstairs. The first place he was shown to wasn’t hard to reach but might be forgotten quickly if he didn’t pay attention. “This room has been furnished especially for you,” the man assured him. “If you find that there is anything not to your liking or anything that you may require, please feel free to inform me. We want you to feel at home here.”

Jason scoffed. “You think a street rat’s going to feel at home at a place with a butler? You’re funny.”

Alfred ignored the comment and waited for Jason to check the room out. The four-poster bed was king-size—already more than he’d ever had—and the dressers were already filled with brand new clothes. He held up a shirt to his chest, seeing if it was even remotely the right size only to be pleasantly surprised. “Didn’t think you guys had much time to prepare,” he mumbled, gauging Alfred’s reaction.

“Master Bruce adopted another boy before you,” he explained, not even hesitating to be completely honest. “He is over eighteen now and has chosen to move out, but the connection is still important to the both of them, so it is likely you shall meet him soon.”

Jason thought about the age range of Robin and nodded. “That makes sense, I suppose. So these clothes are hand-me-downs then?”

“Not quite. Master Dick left before he could use these. I believe they are of a similar size. You shall have to let me measure you soon so that I may handle your wardrobe. But for now, this is the alternative.”

Jason tossed the shirt on the bed and nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Now, did Bruce mention a library?”

Alfred seemed to brighten at that. “Of course. If you would…”

Alfred proceeded to lead him through labyrinthine halls before reaching a pair of double doors. He held the handles excitedly before stating, “Welcome, Master Jason, to you own personal library.” He pulled the doors opened and Jason had to admit, this worked.

It was like it was straight out of some fantasy film. Floor to ceiling, different levels to work with, and enough books to keep Jason busy for years to come.

“Should you find that the particular book you’re looking for isn’t available, do let me know,” Alfred offered. “I am in charge of the organization of this library and, literate as Master Bruce claims to be, much of it remains untouched.”

Jason nodded in awe. “Just one thing, old man,” he noted. “You got a Shakespeare section?”

Alfred scoffed. “We have everything short of the lost manuscripts themselves…”


	2. Blood Red Robin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now living at Wayne Manor, Jason's able to experiment as he likes. With the now-available tools at his disposal, he's able to uncover interesting information about Helena.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Didn't abandon this. Sorry. It's a weirder story and I've got too many stories going on right now. But this will bleed into another, so it's got to be written.
> 
> Don't forget, Jason Napier is a sociopath through and through. Don't expect redeeming qualities. What little sympathy he has is reserved for Helena, and don't trust that to be a good thing.

Being Bruce Wayne’s second foster kid had its perks, all of which Jason took advantage of. Some things, however, were simply expected of him.

If it was expected of him to attend private school, so be it.

He was easily top of his grade, but after the school tried to commend him with an academic reward, he took great efforts to keep his grades at a more accessible average. The last thing he needed to deal with was the extra attention that academic recognition would get him. If that meant hiding his genius, so be it. The information was only really of any use to himself anyways. Besides, he had a much more exciting pass time at school.

“Jay!”

Jason tilted his head to the side and waited for Helena to join him in the lounge hall of the academy. While it was something of a hot spot during lunch period, there was a little inlet in the far corner where he had taken to spending his time.

Upon finding that Helena Dent was in his class, he carefully inserted himself into her circle only to find that her circle was shockingly small. In fact, she was largely ignored by their classmates, who felt that her status as the mayor’s daughter made her unapproachable. Coincidentally, his status as Bruce Wayne’s newest foster son also earned him a bit of infamy (though most people believed that Bruce was his sugar daddy, a term which Jason had never cared for, but in this case he felt might apply).

Helena settled onto the window ledge in front of him, pulling her knees up so that the black bicycle shorts under her uniform skirt were in full view. That was a clear indicator that it wasn’t actually Helena who was joining him that day.

That was the interesting thing that he learned within his first week at the academy. For all appearances and purposes, Helena Dent was Helena Dent. However, Jason had realized quickly that she would often act like a completely different person. It was easily diagnosable, but as usual her foster father let here severe split personality disorder go largely ignored. 

The triggers that brought about her other side were relatively simple for him to recognize as well.

Helena, after all, was reasonable. She could be very melancholy and saw the world as cruel but did what she could to maintain her place in it. She was the girl who had caught his eye that night so long ago.

Duela, on the other hand, was all about breaking rules. She was cheerful but crass. She had seen the worst of the world and decided to roll with the punches. Apparently, however, it was Duela’s outbursts that often resulted in the abuse that they suffered at the hand of their foster father. She was the girl he’d met after Ma Gunn’s school was shut down.

“You’re looking particularly ennui today,” Duela said, twisted smirk splitting her face. “What, somebody spit in your sandwich?”

“This is just my face,” he assured her. Jason preferred Helena. Something about her somber sadness made him ache for her. Duela abandoned all aspects of Helena that made his emotions stir, so he just wasn't taken with her. Though he did recognize that dealing with Duela had its benefits. “Not eating again today, huh? That can’t be good for you.”

“Daddy Dent got pissed over us not taking our meds again. Started threatening he’d put extra doses in our lunch.” She eyed his food hungrily. “But it looks like Daddy Morebucks stocked you up good. He got a thing for fatties?”

Jason tossed the lunch sack he’d brought to her and she happily dug in, knowing full well that he’d had his butler pack extras “for a friend.”

“What drugs is he having you take again?” This was what he enjoyed most about Duela; whatever conversations he had with Helena were always fresh on both of their mind, but that didn’t work both ways. What he and Duela spoke about remained their little secret from her other personality.

Duela smacked her tongue, savoring the large amount of peanut butter Alfred had put on the sandwich. “Mm. Adderall, Prozac, Zoloft—”

“Prozac AND Zoloft?”

“Maybe not. Been a while. Stuff has switched around.” She held her hand up next to her ear and shook it just a little, a clear tell to the fact that the drugs weren’t all helping her. “Daddy Dent thinks we’re too uppity. Doesn’t look good on camera. So, he has us try so many different concoctions to see what’ll shut us up.”

Jason contemplated how people could be so thoroughly controlled by drugs. He’d have to look into that.

“So enough about my problems. How’s it with the golden boy? He gotten used to the idea of a little brother yet?”

-

“What the hell were you thinking!?”

Dick Grayson was exactly as news reports described him. Bruce Wayne’s first ward; the upbeat, lithe young man from the circus who had grown apathetic to the American Dream that his guardian perpetrated. Meeting him in person, however, Jason felt a bit star-struck. He was an Adonis if Jason had ever seen one. For another foster boy, he was very different from the other boys Jason had come across.

“I’m not about to let him join me on patrols without further training,” Bruce reassured Dick. “That’s why I called you here. I think Jason could learn valuable things from you.”

“Jesus, do you even hear yourself?”

“Batman and Robin mean something,” Bruce said flatly. “Batman alone strikes terror into everyone. He perpetrates the myth. While Robin—”

“May as well have been your human shield!” Dick snapped. “And don’t tell me it meant something! It didn’t mean shit if you can just go out and adopt the next model so easily!”

“Enough! That’s not what this is!” Bruce’s voice dropped an octave and he made himself seem much larger. Jason straightened slightly, wondering if that method would be effective for him in the future. “Jason has been through his own share of tragedy and I have the means of providing him with a better life! What makes you worthier than him, Dick? Tell me that!”

Dick recoiled, eyes shifting uncomfortably between Jason and Bruce. After a moment of panic, he groaned. “Can I…Can I talk to Bruce alone, Jason? You, uh, know where the gym is? I’ll meet you there.”

Jason shrugged and moved out of the Batcave, heading for the open gym. It still amazed him just how rich Bruce Wayne was. Ma Gunn’s school was barely getting by with a leaky roof and old beds that creaked with every shift in movement, and that was with the extra income that they brought in helping to pay for supplies. But Bruce Wayne? It was almost annoying that Dick was upset that Bruce had chosen to foster another kid. With his fortune, he should be running a house more than Gunn ever should have.

The gym was set up like it was meant to host hundreds of people, not one person at a time. Much of the equipment was meant for gymnastics too. Not sure where to start, Jason hopped on a treadmill and started a leisurely jog. It was about fifteen minutes before Dick showed up, having changed out of the jeans and t-shirt he’d shown up in and into a pair of sweats with a skin-tight tank top. He tossed Jason a white sweat towel and waited for him to stop his run and get a drink of water.

“For the record, I’m still against the idea of you taking over as Robin,” Dick announced as he hoisted himself up onto the pommel horse and swung his legs over and around it a few times. Jason tried to look disinterested, but it was hard not to stare. Dick had perfect form and moved with a grace Jason had never known. “But the way Bruce puts it, even if you never put on my old suit, you’d probably wind up throwing a punch at some point. I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’re not inclined to hit your classmates.”

He wasn’t exactly wrong. Jason truly had no intentions of fighting anyone that he didn’t have to. But he also had every intention of going out as Robin. “If you’re so worried, teach me self-defense and show me how to move like you do,” he suggested. “You’re pretty amazing. I’d like to be able to move like that.”

Dick smiled slightly, and Jason nearly felt the urge to smile with him, simply basking in the glow of his undeniably infectious warmth. “I grew up with the circus. You’re not going to learn to move exactly like me, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Jason trained with Dick four days a week and tried his hand at things on his own for the other three. Bruce, however insistent as he was that Jason could be Robin, was waiting for Dick’s sign of approval before taking Jason out on patrol. Alfred had seen to it that he had a Robin suit all his own—something sleek with more red and black than the original bright color scheme—and made certain that he was getting proper meals to help build up some muscle on what was otherwise basically skin and bones.

Within two months he’d gained weight almost entirely in muscle mass and could mimic most of what Dick showed him. He found it thoroughly satisfying to be able to move like Dick so quickly while Dick found it impressive and somewhat alarming.

But he still didn’t have the seal of approval.

“Let’s call it, Little Wing. Good workout.”

“Good enough?” Jason asked while in a perfect handstand on the balance beam. “I’m getting a little stir crazy.” He exhaled slowly, making sure that his arms didn’t shake as he slowly let his legs fall apart in a full split.

Dick sighed. “You know, if I had my way you’d never wear that suit.”

Jason pulled his feet back together before tucking them in in order to roll so that he was lying along the beam. “Yeah, I got that. What really sucks is that Bruce seems determined to give you your way.”

Dick scoffed and went over to lean in close to Jason’s face. Close enough that he could smell the faint scent of tea tree oil shampoo, mixed with the musk of his sweat. “You’re amazing, Little Wing. Truly. Would it be so bad if you just…I don’t know…got into sports? Vigilante work is thankless. It’s dangerous. I just want to keep you safe.”

Jason rolled his eyes and let himself drop off the beam and onto his feet. “You’ve got your own obligations these days, or so I’m told. Isn’t it a pain to come out here this often just to train a kid you’re never going to let take up the mantle?” He moved past his sweat rag and went straight to his water bottle, taking only a few quick sips before pulling his shirt up to wipe the water and sweat off his face.

Dick was a lady’s man—Jason had no doubt about that—but there was also a particular way that he looked at Bruce that betrayed a sort of affection beyond how a son should look at his father. Jason had picked up on that right away and found that a good way to make his new brother squirm was to push at the boundaries of his sexual desires.

Without outright flirting, Jason would show a little more skin. He’d show off. He’d fall where Dick could catch him. All little things to keep the guy on his toes. And redirect some of that affection towards Jason.

Not that Jason was into men. It was hard to say that he had any sexual preferences at all. He felt something different for Helena, but that was more of a selfish fascination. Dick was attractive, but what did that matter? What was important was that Dick was a means to an end. If making Dick look at him hungrily would help him to achieve what he wanted, it would be worth every motion.

“Let’s hit the showers. I don’t have to be back in Bludhaven until tomorrow evening. Why don’t we have some fun? Has Bruce shown you his movie theater yet?”

Bruce was barely around, which suited Jason fine. Alfred was friendly and happy to show him anywhere in the mansion. His favorite places were the library and the movie theater. He supposed that was because film offered a new medium for the stories that he valued so much. But at Dick’s suggestion, an idea came to mind. “Yeah, there’s this movie I was hoping to watch soon. I hear it’s a good one.”

Dick draped his sweat rag around his neck and smiled. “Let’s do it.”

It was a shame that the gym didn’t come with the type of showers at schools and in movies. Jason was sure he could do a few things that would leave his mentor at a complete loss for words. Instead the two of them split and found showers separate from each other. Jason found himself thinking about Dick. About that tea tree oil shampoo that he liked to use. About the way that his body was all sleek muscle and control while Jason’s was growing into something a little less slender. At this point, he was going to look too big to be mistaken for the original Robin. It was about time for Dick to admit that it was time to pass the mantle.

By the time Dick got to the theater with a bowl of popcorn, Jason had already loaded up the movie and settled into a seat in the middle of the viewing area. He hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt, which seemed to make Dick visibly startled. Jason just gave him a knowing grin—something he’d come to practice just for the boy wonder’s sake—and kicked his legs up, showing off the way that the ripped jeans he was wearing clung to his muscles. “What took you so long?”

Dick cleared his throat and muttered, “I…dried my hair.”

Jason’s somewhat curly black locks were plastered to his forehead. He ran a hand through them, pushing them away from his face. “Wet hair never really bothered me,” he gave as a simple explanation. Dick didn’t have to know that every last detail was carefully calculated to get what Jason wanted from this situation.

“Right. Well…” Dick settled into the seat next to Jason, trying his best not to appear uncomfortable. “I’ll warn you now; Bruce and Alfred are more of the Academy Award winning movie types. Me? Well, I can’t get enough of that newer Greatest Showman movie. If you picked something intellectually stimulating, you might have to explain the finer details to me.”

Jason tapped the play button on the remote and mumbled, “I’m counting on it.”

The movie started. It seemed mundane enough at first glance. The Talented Mr. Ripley. Dick had no idea what he was in for.

Within no time, the main character of the movie was recruited by a worried rich father to find his runaway son in Italy and bring him home. The circumstances that led to the task were purely coincidental. The main character, Tom Ripley, only had the most fleeting connection to even tie himself to the man’s son, Dickie.

Jason couldn’t have picked a better movie if he tried.

“Huh. Naturally the handsome philanderer is named ‘Dickie,’” Dick joked upon the character’s first appearance. “Ooh, I love that actress!”

Jason just kept quiet, eyes trained on the screen, waiting like a spider with an unsuspecting fly making itself comfortable in his web.

Tom admitted to Dickie that he was there because of Dickie’s father. He demonstrated his talent for mimicry by using the old man’s voice and mannerisms so well that it gave Dickie chills. But rather than be upset or cause trouble, they came to an agreement that they’d use the funds for Tom’s expenditure to their advantage.

“Huh.” Dick shuddered right along with Dickie at Tom’s spot-on impersonation of his father.

The movie kept going right along and it became clear that Tom appreciated Dickie’s personality, his lifestyle, how he could make everyone feel like they were just the person he wanted to be with at that moment. It all seemed innocent enough; just a couple of guys living it up with a little con on the rich dad. Almost like Dick and Jason reaping the benefits of Bruce’s fortune without having to worry about paying him back.

In time, however, it became subtly apparent that Tom didn’t just like Dickie as a brother.

Dickie caught Tom trying on his clothes once. At another point Tom offered to help Dickie bathe. These little actions set the character off, and Dick started to seem a little confused as well. Everything was subtle enough, however, that neither Dick nor Dickie thought much of it.

But then Dickie decided that it was time to move on. That the con had been fun, but his father wasn’t going to let it go on much further anyways, so it was time for him and Tom to go their separate ways.

Tom didn’t take well to that.

It was clear that he was agitated. Disappointed and hurt that Dickie was so ready to dismiss him and move on. He did what he could to insert himself at Dickie’s side as often as possible, but Dickie just wouldn’t have it anymore.

Finally, Dickie rented a rowboat for him and Tom to go out in and have their last goodbye. While out on the water, far from prying eyes, he accused Tom of being gay. Tom reacted poorly. He went into a panic, desperately trying to deny the accusation. Dickie grew hysterical, upset that Tom had been using him and ogling him. He accused Tom of being in love with him and after Tom responded to Dickie’s angry and violent accusations in the form of knocking him upside the head with the oar hard enough to draw blood. From there, things really began to escalate.

Dick tensed in his seat as a severely injured Dickie threatened to kill Tom and tried to choke him out, so Jason did the natural thing: he placed his hand on Dick’s arm to show solidarity and provide comfort.

In the end, Tom managed to get Dickie off of him and proceeded to hit him with the oar again…and again…and again, making sure that the philandering, runaway heir was dead.

“Th-this movie really isn’t what I was expecting,” Dick whispered, as if talking would disturb the quiet sadness of the film as Tom laid with Dickie’s lifeless body in his arms on the boat.

The movie certainly took a turn after that.

Rather than fess up to murder, Tom tried to cover it up. But without Dickie to help him out financially and with Dickie’s father having stopped paying him, he had no means of getting home or even getting by. So, he did what he could to settle Dickie’s affairs, make people think he was still alive, and take a lump sum of the money the guy would no longer be needing in order to take care of himself.

Then someone confused him for Dickie.

Only then did Jason start to take popcorn from the bowl. Dick, on the other hand, was suddenly hyper-focused on the movie. Every action Tom took in order to remake himself as Dickie gave Dick chills. Every person he was able to fool meant another layer in the lie that he was perpetuating in order to hide what he had done and continue to live comfortably.

The lie became dangerous as one of Dickie’s old chums caught on. In order to keep himself from getting caught, Tom wound up killing that guy as well.

“Geez,” Dick breathed, surprised by the second murder. “Someone’s going to catch him. Stuff like this doesn’t just go unpunished.”

Jason almost felt pity for Dick.

Eventually Dickie’s left-behind fiancé caught on to Tom’s duplicity. However, despite all odds, Dickie’s father came to Italy to calm her and tell Tom personally that he was sorry for the way that he’d gotten caught up with his no-good son’s mess. He paid Tom for his troubles and kept the fiancé away from him.

Even more shocking, the police who suspected Tom of having killed Dickie’s friend were thrown off the scent by a friend Tom had made who had been subtly flirting with him for a while, but careful enough not to push too hard in case Tom was defensive about his sexuality.

Everything was coming up aces for Tom Ripley.

He and his friend went on a cruise together. They allowed their relationship to become intimate. Awful as Tom had been, he was going to be happy. Dick seemed conflicted about that but didn’t voice his concerns.

That is, until someone who he’d fooled into believing he was Dickie saw him. She was on the cruise as well, with people who also believed he was Dickie.

His lover wouldn’t understand.

“No,” Dick muttered as Tom retired to their room on the cruise ship. “No. He needs to stop. He needs to give up.”

Tom suggested to his lover that they spend the rest of the cruise together in that room, just locked in a passionate embrace.

“Y-yeah,” Dick whispered. “Okay. Yeah. That could work. They just have to stay hidden until they reach the shore. It’ll be okay.”

Jason placed his arm over Dick’s shoulders, making the older boy shift worriedly.

Tom asked his lover to say what he saw in Tom. He needed to know that he was worth something.

His lover happily listed off one fantastic quality after another as the camera panned away from the two of them. Without thinking, Dick leaned closer to Jason, realizing where this was going. “Oh god.”

Tom’s lover suddenly said that Tom was crushing him.

“Noooo.”

There were the sounds of a futile struggle and sobbing from Tom as his lover begged for his life.

When the sounds stopped, the credits began to roll.

Jason took the bowl out of Dick’s lap and set it aside in order to let his mentor curl against him, fighting back tears. “He…he didn’t have to…Why would he…? Oh god.”

Now it was time for the real performance. “Hey hey, it’s okay. It’s just a movie. You’re okay.” Jason ran a hand carefully through Dick’s hair, carding it through the soft strands in a gentle massage. “It’s okay. It’s not like it’s real. I mean, you’re a ladies’ man, sure. But that sort of thing would never—”

Dick turned and cupped Jason’s face, stealing a desperate kiss.

Jason couldn’t have planned this better if he tried.

Dick stopped kissing Jason and looked panicked. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

Jason shushed him, cradled his cheek in one hand, and stole another kiss. This one was slower. Deeper. Jason gently pried Dick’s lips apart, pressing his tongue into the other boy’s mouth to explore. Dick whined softly, a stray tear falling down his cheek as he melted in Jason’s arms. Jason ventured to bite Dick’s bottom lip a bit harshly, drawing blood. Dick pulled away in shock, but their eyes locked and suddenly Dick was peeling his shirt up over his head, casting it aside as Jason slid off the seat and onto the floor.

Hidden in the dark of the theater, he let Dick seek the warmth of their exposed skin pressed together. It was like Jason had guessed; Dick wanted something from Bruce that he didn’t dare ask for, and he was using Jason as a substitute for the affection that he truly wanted. Hoping to achieve his own end, Jason let it happen. He showed his mentor the affection that he believed he wanted. He reassured him. Insisted that he understood. That Dick was loved.

It took Alfred using the intercom in the theater the next morning for them to finally move.

[Masters Dick and Jason, your presence has been requested in the main kitchen.]

Dick moaned and nuzzled against Jason’s chest. “What have I done?”

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Jason half joked. The fact that they both knew was that the whole mansion was bugged with security cameras. Their actions were anything but private—though Jason was counting on the fact that Dick would believe them completely exposed when the cameras in the theater wouldn’t catch exactly what was going on between the seats. “That was…I mean…”

“Please, just…don’t bring it up,” Dick mumbled, finding his boxers and pants draped over the seat and cast in the popcorn bowl. “Shit. How old are you again?”

“Does it matter?”

Dick groaned. “Of course it matters. Fuck. You’re in school. I…that wasn’t…I’m so sorry.”

Jason caught Dick’s arm before he could run and said, “I’m not upset that it happened, Grayson. I’m not going to get you in trouble. And if you’re really worried, heh, I’m not about to brain you with an oar and steal your life.” Not in as many words, at least.

Dick smiled sadly. “Y-yeah. That doesn’t make this okay, Little Wing. I should have never…I mean…How did you even know how to…um…”

“You learn a few things to survive,” Jason told him. “You’re going back to Bludhaven today, aren’t you?”

Dick pressed a palm to his forehead and groaned once again. “Shit. Yeah. Yeah, I can’t really put it off any longer.”

Jason slid his fingers along Dick’s arm suggestively. “I know it’s a lot, and I know you’re just trying to protect me, but at this point, from what? Please. Give me the green light,” he implored. “Tell Bruce I’m ready. As a parting gift.”

Dick let out a soft whine before bringing his knee over Jason’s lap, straddling him and stealing a kiss that would be a little more visible from the cameras. Of course their first few kisses would be visible too and it wasn’t hard to guess why they were missing clothes and spent the night on the theater floor.

“You’re…you’re dangerous,” Dick whispered, grinding against Jason’s morning wood. “You’ve just got us wrapped around your little finger, don’t you?”

Jason smiled more genuinely at that statement, tasting the slight musky morning breath on Dick’s tongue. “You have no idea.”

-

And just like that, he had Dick’s seal of approval in more ways than one. Bruce and Alfred acted strangely around them that morning, no doubt aware of what had happened that made Dick so desperate to get out of town, but that night Jason finally went on patrol as Robin.

Getting Dick’s approval had taken long enough that Alfred had to adjust his custom Robin suit before he went out. He and Bruce encountered a villain known as the Scarecrow, who apparently manipulated his victims’ fears in order to torture and abuse them. Bruce had made sure Jason had an air filter so that he wouldn’t have to worry, but curiosity got the better of him, and he ditched the device as soon as he could, inhaling the freak’s toxin deeply.

He was genuinely disappointed when he couldn’t see any difference and took his anger out on the confused waif of a man. Bruce had allowed it, thinking that Jason needed to face his fear and overcome it. He only bothered to intervene when Jason had hit the guy hard enough to dislocate one end of his jaw. Seeing the self-proclaimed scarecrow with an abnormally distended mouth was somewhat amusing to Jason, and he found himself smiling about it. When Bruce showed concern and tried to confront him about it, he just explained that he was overenthusiastic because it was his first night on patrol.

But every night after felt just as exciting. Fighting tooth and nail to stop crime was one thing. Watching other people break under his fists was another. Though he couldn’t say whether or not it made him actually feel happy, it certainly gave him a sense of catharsis and Bruce never reprimanded him so long as he didn’t get in the Bat’s way.

It didn’t take long for him to be recognized across Gotham as the Red Robin; Batman’s assistant who was similar to, but very different from his first sidekick. The original Robin had an air of innocence about him. He would crack jokes and subdue evil. Jason was more concerned with getting the job done and showed no remorse beyond the occasional cocky smile to his opponents.

Bruce had the occasional tip, but in no time there was nothing he felt able to say with regards to Jason’s form or habits. He’d figured out how to be the most effective Robin that he could be and was ready to face whatever he had to.

Or that’s what he always thought.

“Dent…”

Jason stared at Helena’s empty seat, unable to reconcile the feeling in his stomach.

“Hmm. Has anybody heard from Miss Dent?” their homeroom teacher asked hopefully for the third time that week. “I’m beginning to worry.”

Beginning to?

Batman would occasionally allow Robin to go off on his own and follow a lead if it was purely for the sake of investigation. So, Jason settled on a little side mission while working a solo patrol that night, claiming that he might be able to find evidence of corruption in the mayor’s office.

He wasn’t lying, at least.

Of course, dealing in half-truths was Jason’s specialty.

Using the tools that were at his disposal, Jason broke into the old child services office after hours. There were a few kids staying there for the night and one supervisor yawning in front of a computer monitor, watching horribly inappropriate things within earshot of the kids. Jason knocked the guy out unapologetically, tying him up in the corner before going through documents.

Things weren’t well organized, but he managed to find the most recent filed reports for Helena. The typical abuse reports had changed. It was no longer indicated that Harvey was JUST abusing his daughter, it was becoming more and more apparent that she had been sexually assaulted.

Jason would have to find a better way to punish Harvey than just Batman and Robin handing him over to the GCPD.

Given the opportunity, he continued to dig into Helena’s file. The abuse was longstanding. The unnecessary drugs that she had been prescribed were all listed. It was disgusting how much the social workers allowed the mayor to get away with.

But then he found something that he could hardly believe.

Helena Kyle was left in foster care by her mother: Selina Kyle.

Jason knew that name. Bruce had a romantic history with Selina. She acted as the famous cat burglar: Catwoman.

It was like it all made sense. Those piercing blue eyes that had captivated him so thoroughly…

…Catwoman’s eyes were green…

…Bruce’s were the same icy blue.

He downloaded her file onto a triple encripted drive and accessed the Bat Computer built into his glove, finding the location of Catwoman’s supposedly secret apartment.

It was time to pay the woman a formal visit.

Selina’s apartment was messy. It reminded Jason of his parents’ place, one upon a time. The only thing well-kept was the place on the counter where bowls of food were left out for the many cats that wandered the place.

How shameful, Jason thought, that the woman put so much effort into caring for cats but didn’t care one bit for her own daughter. She’d have to be taught a lesson.

“Who’s there?”

Of course, the Catwoman was vigilant. Bruce commended her often for being nearly as well trained as he was.

“I’m here for answers,” Jason said, dropping the baritone in his voice for effect as he hid in the darkest parts of her kitchen. He reconsidered showing up in full Robin uniform. “Tell me about Helena.”

Selina was visibly shaken. “She’s…she’s in a better place.”

“Harvey Dent, huh? Mayor of Gotham. The city’s white knight. As two-faced as the Hydra after a few heads removed.” Jason did his best to creep towards the window for an easy exit. “What a great man to raise the daughter of Batman and Catwoman.”

“He…he can give her more than I ever could.”

Jason couldn’t help but laugh at the implication. “That’s for sure. Gave her so much more than she ever wanted.” He threw down copies of the files that he’d stolen and crept out of the window. He didn’t have another word for the woman who had abandoned her child to the suffering she’d been left to.

-

[Shocking reports of a suicide off Gotham Founders’ Pier. One Selina Kyle, known by many for her circulation around Bruce Wayne and his social gatherings, was found dead this morning, having thrown herself from the bridge. No explanation discovered as of yet…]

It had come as a real shock to the Wayne household. Alfred knew that Bruce would be incoherent. Dick chose to spend the week in Gotham rather than at his apartment in Bludhaven—a true challenge for Jason, as facing Bruce’s rage made Dick desperate enough to seek out the comfort of a warm body who ‘understood’ his emotional turmoil. Of course, keeping up appearances was important, so welcoming Dick into his bed a few nights wasn’t unexpected.

Patrols with Batman proved to be the most informative around that time. Selina’s death had left Bruce angry. Having no answers left him inconsolable (it had been particularly challenging for Jason to get back the files he’d left for Selina to observe, but he managed to do it without the investigators spotting them first). Robin would stand aside and let Batman take out his anger on the criminals who were dumb enough to take advantage of his poor state of mind. When they looked like they couldn’t take anymore, Robin would play ‘good cop,’ and step in to save them from Batman’s harshest punishment.

When they’d get back to the cave, Bruce would rip his cowl off and shout, angry at Jason for interfering with what needed to be done. But time after time, Dick and Alfred both would thank him for preventing Batman from crossing that line.

It was hard to see why the line mattered so much. Jason had killed before, after all, and he didn’t feel the need to repeat the process every day as Bruce seemed to believe killers would feel the inclination to do. After all, the whole situation had been inconvenient. Sure, Ma Gunn had them all make sure that the murder would never be unearthed, but that didn’t change the fact that it had made things awkward for a while back at her school.

On a lighter note, Helena and Duela finally started attending classes again. It took a while, and knowing why didn’t make Jason happy, but he missed her company.

“I’m sorry we haven’t been around,” Duela told him at lunch one day. She accepted Alfred’s extra sandwich and wolfed it down shockingly fast—Jason made a note to ask for more food from Alfred in the future and let her have the rest of his lunch that day—before pulling her knees up to her chin and staring idly out the window. “It’s okay, though. He…he loves me.”

Jason felt uncomfortable at the way that his friend’s more outspoken personality spoke. “He LOVES you?”

She nodded. “I understand now. He…just wants us…me…to be there. Sometimes it hurts, but it’s okay. Sometimes love hurts.”

Jason was disgusted. Much like the way that Dick tended to pine over Bruce, there was an air of insecurity. However, Dick was the one left suffering for his own feelings that he wouldn’t act on. Duela showed him that, given time, she couldn’t tell the difference between the abuse and affection. He’d have to show her the light. Have to prove that what her foster father was doing to her wasn’t good.

Or maybe there was something else he could do?

The Batcave afforded Jason a space where he could do more research than any lab available in Gotham. He listed the drugs that he knew Helena was taking, testing to see how they were affecting her. Then he tested how other drugs would interact with them…

…then he tested how the unusual compounds Batman and Robin encountered interacted with said drugs.

Every morning he would eat Alfred’s breakfast, then rush to the Cave in order to do his own research, then off to school, and home for patrol. It took months for Batman to get over his violent tendencies—though no one but his “family” realized he was grieving the loss of Catwoman—and upon reaching a point of rational thinking again, he began questioning things.

Why had Robin allowed him to act on such violent impulses?

Why had Robin allowed him to stray so far?

The questions made it more and more difficult for Jason to operate. And, determined to protect him from Bruce’s wrath, Dick came back from Bludhaven once again in order to defend Jason.

Difficult as Dick could be, he was a key piece when it came to manipulating Bruce. All Jason had to do was lure Dick further to his favor—often a night or two in passionate embrace did more than enough—then sic him on Bruce. It wasn’t hard. Jason just had to bring up something as simple as their means of handling criminals. Arkham, after all, was quite the point of debate. It had become less of a mental hospital and more of a prison for the psycho-killers Batman put away.

But even with Dick around to distract Bruce, it still proved difficult to ensure that Bruce ignored Jason’s Cave-time studies.

Then opportunity looked Jason in the eyes, daring him to take it.

While on patrol, Bruce was busy trying to locate Riddler. Solving the man’s riddles was no challenge to Jason on an off-day, but sometimes his more physicalized puzzles stumped Batman. While Batman was trying to solve a puzzle, the slightest glint of light caught Jason’s eye.

A day later, while trying to find the point where Mr. Freeze was working from, Jason noticed that glint again.

And again, when the Iceberg Lounge was under Batman’s scrutiny for unsavory business practices. While Batman was busy making what were sure to be hollow threats at Penguin, Jason anticipated where the glint might come from based on where it had been and, lo and behold, he found a kid with a cellphone, watching them work.

“Can I help you?” Jason asked, excited smirk playing its way onto his face.

The kid stared at him, awestruck. “Y-you’re Jason Todd,” he stammered.

Now the kid had REALLY piqued his interest. “Can’t say I know you. But I think I’ve seen you around. Care to explain yourself?”

“I…I mean…”

Jason sighed. He didn’t have time to wait for this kid to get himself sorted out, so he punched him in the face, knocking him unconscious. He proceeded to hoist the kid over his shoulder and move back to join Batman, who had just finished zip-tying Penguin and a number of his men for GCPD to handle, as usual.

“What the hell is that, Robin?”

“I’ve noticed him the last few nights.” Sometimes honesty worked best. “He knows my identity. I thought you’d like to interrogate him.”

Batman didn’t seem to approve of Robin’s methods when it came to subduing who by all appearances was an innocent kid, but he too was curious, and they brought the kid back to the Batcave for interrogation.

“Sir, this is outrageous! This is kidnapping!” Alfred protested as Jason proceeded to zip-tie the kid to a chair in the Cave. “I cannot condone such actions!”

“Hey, he kidnapped me,” Jason pointed out. “Yeah, so maybe I stole a few tires, but the only word Batman had to go on regarding Ma Gunn and her school was that of a delinquent kid. Legally, he was still in the wrong.”

Alfred grimaced. “Don’t speak as if you’re in the same situation. We know nothing of this boy!”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Sure. Well he knows who I am, so I’ll bet you he knows who Batman is too.”

The kid started to come to just as Jason finished tying him down. Despite his predicament, he remained oddly calm. “You found me,” he stated while staring at Batman.

“Robin found you.”

“Jason,” the kid corrected. “I mean…this one’s Jason, right? The last one was Richard Grayson, and you’re Bruce Wayne.”

Batman didn’t let his expression waver. “What led you to that conclusion?”

“There were…certain indicators.” His eyes flicked to Jason for a moment. “For a few months, I thought I was wrong. But then I saw how Jason had changed since he came to you.”

Jason crossed his arms, but he felt a certain kinship with the kid. It never seemed all that difficult to peg Batman’s identity. There was no one in Gotham quite like him, after all. It only made sense. But apparently no one else had sussed it out—though he had his suspicions about a certain police commissioner who continued to work with them—aside from himself and this strange kid.

“Following us to crime scenes was dangerous and stupid.” Batman spat, trying to change the subject. “You could have been hurt, or worse.”

“No one knew I was there.” Again, the kid’s eyes flicked to Jason. “Or, I didn’t think anyone knew I was there.”

“Phone gave you away,” Jason explained. “Not even a flash. Just light off the screen.”

The kid huffed and nodded. “I’ll work on that.”

“Why were you out at all? Your parents would be worried.” Batman insisted.

“They’re a little hands-off,” the kid said, not meeting either of their gaze. Jason could almost taste the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

“Well, he knows. I don’t want to be the one to kill him,” Jason joked, putting his hands up.

“Robin!”

“What? Denying it’s only going to make him more persistent, isn’t it, kid? So, I vote we just make him disappear.”

“That’s not how you operate,” the kid said before Bruce could. “I-I mean…” It was the first time the kid’s voice wavered, and Jason latched onto the moment.

“You know us that well, huh? Well, what would YOU do in this situation?” Jason asked, circling around the chair like a predator around its prey.

“Well…I know that HE won’t hurt me,” the kid amended, again letting his eyes flick to Jason, “but you?”

Batman’s jaw clenched, no doubt determined to defend the reputation of his young sidekick. Jason, on the other hand, felt…exposed. “Robin follows Batman,” he noted.

“Robin followed Batman. You, the Red Robin, you’ve let Batman break his own code.”

Now Jason was left backtracking. “I’m not his keeper. He’s supposed to be mentoring me.”

“Is that what you’re really getting out of all this?”

Again, Jason felt unusually exposed. This game he’d devised, the opportunity to divert Batman’s attention…it wasn’t supposed to include an opponent like this.

“Enough.” Batman finally stepped up. “You can try to out us,” he began, looking angrily at Jason, “as my ward has so eagerly given things away, but I’ll crush any accusations to dust. You know I have the means.”

“I don’t want to out you.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to learn.”

“Batman already has a Robin,” Jason spat, though he hoped the kid would give him more to work with.

“I don’t have to be a Robin. I just want to learn.”

-

It took some further convincing, but the kid, Timothy Drake, came to spend his days after school at the mansion. Bruce would tutor him in the Cave and Jason was tasked with training him to be just as acrobatic and powerful as Robin. Timothy…fascinated Jason almost as much as Helena did, but it was more problematic. Whereas he could fool Bruce and Dick into just about anything, Tim was much more aware of how Jason really was.

“Watch your form. Keep your stomach tight.” Jason recited lines that Dick used to tell him, barely even paying attention to Batman’s latest child-fascination. He didn’t mind the diverted attention, it allowed him to research what he wanted to in peace. What he did mind was the way that Tim saw through him. “Eyes ahead, Drake.”

“You’re only a couple years older than me, right?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Three years. You’ve just started high school. I’ll be finishing in the Spring.”

“Right. And you’ve been a Robin for three years.”

Jason thought back. Nearly four years since he sold out Ma Gunn. Three years since he started sleeping with Dick. One year since Catwoman’s suicide. Maybe another month before he’d finally have what he needed.

“You looking to take over when I slip up?” Jason joked.

“I think…I think you’re a very different kind of Robin.”

“Eyes ahead, Drake. Keep your spotting point.”

“I mean…Grayson came from the circus and he knew what he was doing. He’d been…flipping on these bars and flying through the air for as long as he could remember. But you? How’d…how’d you pick it up so quickly?”

“Aaand watch your hand placement—”

“OOF!”

“Tim!”

Jason looked over his shoulder as Dick dropped his gym bag and rushed over to help Tim off the floor. “That looked nasty! You okay?”

“Yeah. I was distracted.” Tim limped slightly, having landed on his ankle wrong. “You guys make this stuff look so easy.”

Dick had that million-dollar smile he wore so well as he told Tim, “You should have seen Jason when he first started. He wouldn’t even let me help him back to his feet.”

Jason grimaced. He was never as clumsy as Tim. At least not by accident. He’d taken a couple of months’ worth of falls and stumbles just to get Dick to show him a little extra attention. “He’ll be fine, Dick. Bruce just wants to make sure he can handle himself.”

“Seems like Bruce is trying to replace you,” Dick joked as he helped Tim to get settled on a bench. “Not surprising. I’ve never seen someone piss him off quite like you do.”

“Pot, kettle,” Jason threw back, making Dick wince. “What’re you doing in town?”

“B didn’t mention? He’s got a business thing in Bangkok this week.”

And with Bruce away, it was time to play.

“I’ll be acting as Batman until he gets back. Shouldn’t be too hard. Just grunt a lot and scare people.”

“I didn’t think you could stop talking,” Tim joked.

That was something that Jason didn’t care for. Tim was good with people in a way that he never could be. He could read everyone like a book, but Tim’s responses felt more genuine. Personable, even. Meanwhile Jason could hardly bring himself to do anything that wouldn’t reap some sort of benefit for himself. 

“So, you’ll have to deal with me around the mansion for a few days.” Dick looked Jason up and down once and he knew what he was in store for. “You think you can handle being my wingman?”

Dick was easily distracted, and Jason was so close. He’d just have to deal with shaking the guy off once or twice. “You’ve never been too much for me,” he retorted, making Dick turn away and blush. “If Tim’s done for the day, I’ve got some homework. AP Science paper due tomorrow.”

Dick scoffed. “And you haven’t done it yet?”

Jason shrugged. “Never been a challenge before. I’ll let you know if I need your science expertise.” Dick was particularly bad with science and he knew it, so he anticipated having the Cave to himself at least until it was time for patrol.

And, at long last, his work was finished. A simple pill with a slight red hue. It would have to work. It would change things.

“H-hey Jay.” Duela was shaky. She was always shaky these days. Jason hadn’t seen Helena in at least a year. Duela spoke of her, but it was like that half of her was trapped in the recesses of their collective mind. Harvey Dent had seen to it that Helena was thoroughly crushed, then he continued to abuse Duela to his heart’s content. It was time to put an end to that.

“I made you something,” Jason said softly, holding out the single reddish pill. “It’s going to help.”

“I’m done,” Duela told him, pulling her uniform jacket up to hide her mouth. “Dad’s not…he’s not that bad. He loves me. It’s…it’s okay.”

Helena…Duela…they were the one person Jason never wanted to pretend with, but it was clear that she needed an extra push. So he caught her arm, pulled her close, and stole a kiss. He was well practiced—Dick knew what he was doing, so he’d learned—and kept it aggressive but pliant. He let her know that he wanted her, but that he wanted her to feel in control. When their lips parted they pressed their foreheads together and she sobbed.

“I can’t do this anymore. I feel…I feel so alone…”

Jason held up the pill again. “I’ll take away your pain. I love you. All of you. I just wanted to help you. Let me help you.”

She nodded and let him press the pill to her tongue. She snatched his water bottle to swallow it then stole one more kiss. “Thanks, Jay. Whatever happens, I’m glad we knew you.”

And it did happen.

[Shock and terror today as Mayor Dent was discovered in his own home, brutally murdered!]

Jason settled onto the couch between Dick and Tim, fighting the smile that wanted to play its way onto his face.

“Dent? We all knew he was corrupt, but to be killed?” Tim muttered.

“His poor kid,” Dick added. “She’s the one who discovered him.”

Jason leaned back, feigning ignorance.

[He is survived by his foster daughter, Helena Dent, who was unavailable for questioning.]

“God, she looks like she’s your age,” Dick noted, elbowing Jason.

“Just another kid lost to the system,” he added. “Play our cards right and maybe Bruce’ll adopt another. Am I right?”

Dick and Tim both stared at him, not appreciating the joke made in poor taste.

“Oh, come on. You practically live here, Timbers. What’s one more kid around the house?” Jason put his feet up on the coffee table and Alfred passed by, clearing his throat loudly. Jason scoffed, but put his feet down quickly. “What do you say, Jeeves? Bruce could easily afford another kid. Maybe he won’t even make the next one a sidekick!”

“I fail to see the humor, Master Jason. Will you be needing extra food for lunch today?”

Jason waved his hand dismissively. “No. I think she’s finally got it figured out.”


	3. A Red and Black Joker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason's symphony reaches its finale and no one is safe from the wrath of the Jokers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yaaaa, just going to reiterate: still didn't abandon this! My excuses nowadays include a number of weirder things (#Apocalypse2020 anyone?) so I'll spare the details.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry! I expanded this by one chapter after taking as long as I did to get this chapter up! I didn't account for how long this chapter was going to be, so I figured I could cut out the epilogue/prologue and put it in another chapter (this is connected to a series! I don't think you have to read everything in the series to enjoy this, though. It just will be used for a different story in the series in due time--if you're wondering, the story where this will cross into is Probation). The next chapter is already written, it's just being beta'd now.
> 
> Anywho, this chapter is pretty brutal! Jason Napier isn't a nice guy (surprise surprise)! Here's what the "Major Character Death" tag is for! Also extra warning for some sequences that can be triggering! MIND THE TAGS. If you're coming to this from Probation: EXTRA MIND THE TAGS AND THE RATING! One message and I'll happily sum it up so you don't need any of the intensity in this chapter. Not to mention I'll include explanations for these characters when they appear in Probation. Promise.
> 
> Otherwise, I hope you enjoy!

Titus Andronicus, the Roman general, was away at war only to return to find his life in utter disarray. His solution led to further chaos and in the end, he’d gotten himself and everyone he cared for killed in the most brutal fashion.

Poetic justice, in Jason’s opinion.

Bruce had returned to Gotham to find his city in disarray.

Now it was time for the chaos.

Duela proved to be the perfect catalyst. No one at school questioned her absence because they assumed she was in mourning. The social workers were just happy that she wasn’t around as often. And no one could find her to make a statement regarding her father’s recent passing.

She was in communication with Jason, though. In fact, she’d chosen to trust him with everything. He couldn’t have asked for more.

“Twelve!” Bruce snapped, storming through the manor in a rage. “Twelve victims today alone! How could you let this happen?”

Dick was doing his best to keep up. “Batman’s a vigilante, not a surgeon general! We’ve been working to stop criminals! Drug dealers aren’t exactly as easy to spot as Cobblepot and his weird thing with birds!”

“You don’t even have a lead on where this drug came from!”

Bruce’s booming voice even managed to make Alfred flinch as he poured Tim a mug of coffee. Jason watched in bemused silence as the scene continued to play out.

“I don’t know why you’re blaming me for this! You’ve been back for weeks and you’re no further on this case! I’ve followed protocols! I’ve analyzed a viable blood sample from someone who…had recently passed due to the drug.”

“Why haven’t you obtained a sample of the drug itself!?”

Because Duela was following Jason’s specific instructions. She wasn’t just some back-alley drug dealer. Their victims were targeted. Not your typical addicts. Duela wanted to take down people who reminded her of her father. He wanted to keep Batman’s undivided attention, so her methods suited him just fine.

The district attorney—who had gotten the now-dead mayor off on many occasions—dying with an unusual drug in his system that led to a fit of manic insanity; resulting in the murders of the supreme court judge, a defense attorney, and the client in question: Carmine Falcone. Upon killing the others in cold blood, the DA died with a smile on his face.

The Police Commissioner—who was fully aware of how the now-dead mayor had abused his child—dying with the same unusual drug in his system after yet another fit of insanity; resulting in the murder of three inmates and two fellow officers before the man himself died with a smile on his face.

Experimental as it was, Jason’s drug was working flawlessly.

Even Batman couldn’t stop its wrath.

“A victim should be just as viable as the drug itself,” Jason mumbled, very purposefully stirring the pot. “You’re blaming the wrong person for—”

“I don’t want to hear it!”

“Enough!” Dick shoved Bruce backwards, no longer able to contain his agitation. “How DARE you pass the blame! I’ve had it!”

It was too easy. Dick couldn’t help but be pulled along by his emotions. It was his greatest weakness and one that Jason never felt any shame in exploiting. It was only so fun watching Bruce attack Dick. Seeing Dick do what he could to throw shade on Bruce? What had Jason done to get so lucky?

“Gotta get to school,” Jason said, snatching up his toast and backpack and hurrying out.

School hardly seemed important, but he had to keep up appearances. During lunch, though, he went to the usual meeting spot—a back alley that students avoided like the plague when they bothered to go off campus for lunch—and was all but tackled upon his arrival.

“I miss you every day,” Duela squealed. “Though I’ll admit, skipping all this school is fantastic. Fuck Mrs. Dean and her ‘down with the patriarchy’ agenda! Fuck Mr. Argo and his obsession with biblical symbolism in every goddamned piece of writing! And fuck Mr. Haines and his fucking math class!”

“I’ve never seen you so happy,” Jason noted with a slight smile. “I hate to ask again, but have you heard anything from Helena?”

Duela winced. “What, am I not good enough?”

Telling her something like that would be an obvious mistake. “I just worry. You both mean the world to me.” Helena had always been the goal. Duela was the consolation prize. But since taking her first dose of the drug, Helena hadn’t reemerged. The way that it had altered her brain chemistry made Jason worry that it had erased Helena from their mind completely.

Breaking Duela just wouldn’t have the right feel to it. It insulted his Titus Andronicus motif.

“I only took control when she needed protection,” Duela confessed. “After she receded control when Harvey… I couldn’t feel her then and I can’t feel her now. I even tried watching the footage but—”

“Footage?”

“Right!” Duela took a thumb drive from her pocket. “I forgot to give this to you. Daddy dearest was all about security and… saving things for posterity sake.” She shuddered. “I had enough sense on me to swipe that week’s footage. Cover my tracks.”

Jason took the drive and fought the urge to smile. A whole week’s worth of footage… it could come in handy. “I’m sorry you had to endure him for so long,” he muttered, doing his best to sound sincere. “I won’t let anyone hurt you or Helena like that ever again.”

Duela positively beamed at him. Her devotion to him was unquestionable. If he told her to jump, she’d throw herself right off a cliff.

“Well, I’ve got the next target in mind. You got the next batch? I was thinking of making next round a two-fer. What do you think, my Mister Jay?”

Jason recoiled at the nickname, hoping it wouldn’t stick. “Uh. Right. I’ve got plenty enough to go around.” He took his backpack off his shoulder and went straight for the hidden pocket…

…but nothing was there.

“Well?”

Jason stared at her with wide eyes. “Keep the phone I gave you handy,” he said. “I might have to make a move sooner than I thought.

*

Jason returned to the manor after school to something highly unusual, but unfortunately expected. Dick was still around despite the earlier argument he’d had, and Bruce was awaiting Jason’s return with a scowl. “Can I help you?” Jason asked, feeling his gut twist a little. He hadn’t anticipated being confronted. What did they think that they knew? He could talk his way out of it, he was sure, but nonetheless this was quite the inconvenience.

“Why do you have these?” Bruce held up a zip-lock bag of black pills.

“It’s okay, Jason. We’re not trying to attack you. We’re just worried.” Dick, ever the good cop, was just as naïve as ever. But it was just what Jason needed.

“I…I’ve been under a lot of stress,” he began, testing the waters. “I know the dangers. I hadn’t gotten a chance to try them yet. I was…conflicted. I know you’ve been finding it difficult to get a sample, so I thought I’d give them to you but… I just thought—”

“Starting today, you’re suspended from patrols until further notice,” Bruce decided with a huff, tucking the pills away, no doubt to be tested later. Jason would have to be careful. It wouldn’t do for Batman to know that the drug that had been sweeping its way across Gotham had been manufactured with his own equipment.

“Bruce, you should—”

“No. Jason kept pertinent information regarding an ongoing case from me. I can’t trust him to make the correct decisions if he feels compromised enough to need drugs. That’s all there is to it.”

“But it’s a cry for help! You can’t just—”

“Go home, Dick. This matter doesn’t concern you.”

Dick looked ready to explode. It was difficult for Jason to maintain a neutral expression (even to feign vulnerability) as his most valuable pawn continued to advocate on his behalf. “This is why it’s so difficult to work with you! You can’t even imagine why it might feel necessary to take something just to tolerate working with you!”

“That’s enough! I won’t tolerate this! The Black Pill is Gotham’s silent killer! Would you really question my rage at knowing my son would keep it from me?”

‘Son.’ That had to drive the message home.

Dick looked like he’d been slapped. Years of being Bruce’s ‘ward,’ his ‘apprentice,’ his ‘sidekick,’ and here Jason was: his ‘son.’ That was damage that would be more difficult to mend. Not that it mattered. If Dick was upset with Bruce it would only make what comes next easier for Jason.

Dick stormed off and Jason was left to his own devices. Not wanting to push the possibility of Bruce’s wrath any further, he went to the mansion’s gym and found Tim practicing. His arms trembled as he tried to hold himself up over the pommel horse.

“Maybe start with something easier?” Jason suggested as he peeled his shirt off and hoisted himself up on the higher of the uneven bars.

“Did Bruce talk to you?”

Jason raised an eyebrow and made himself comfortable while looking down at Tim. “Why?”

Tim awkwardly got off the horse and sought out his water bottle. “Things come naturally to you, don’t they?” Jason didn’t appreciate the kid dancing around the subject he himself had brought up. “Dick says it only took you four months to master half of his more complicated techniques.”

Less than that, but Jason had to up-play the falls in order to garner sympathy. “So?”

“And not even a year after you donned the Robin getup, Batman went through a violent phase.”

“Has no one explained that to you? I thought you were a great detective. Didn’t everybody know about Batman’s little fling with Catwoman? That was the time just after her suicide. He was emotionally compromised.”

“But he faced tragedy before,” Tim pointed out. “It was Robin’s unspoken job to keep Batman in line. And yet, you failed to do that.”

“I saw no need to control my mentor,” Jason said darkly. “Have you ever tried to reason with Bruce? There’s not much reason to work with.”

“The Red Robin went along with the violence though,” Tim noted. “There are reports of numerous criminals with permanent injuries who claimed the Red Robin had shown no mercy. There’s a video clip online of the Red Robin beating a criminal while he begged for mercy.”

“I see no reason to show a child molester mercy.” If Jason could remember right, the clip was of one such a criminal. He’d seen it as well, of course. Bruce had lectured him on being more careful and showing restraint. ‘If it would make you happy,’ Jason had told him at the time.

“You make me nervous,” Tim finally confessed. “There’s something… off about you. I noticed before Bruce let me begin training.”

Jason scoffed and twisted his body, swinging down from the bar and leaping to the next. “I’m just Robin 2.0, Timbers. Nothing to worry about.”

“I wanted to believe that.”

Jason already had an idea of how Bruce had gotten the drugs from his backpack.

“I was just trying to find your phone to put a tracer on it.”

‘Just’? That was an impressive breach of privacy. Jason almost felt the need to commend Tim. If he’d done that, the lecture from Bruce might have gone very differently.

“But I found the pills in your backpack.”

The latest batch he had intended to give to Duela was a more perfected recipe. Unlike how she had survived her dosage, this one was guaranteed to drive its ingester to complete madness. A conclusion that Bruce was now likely to come to, having a sample on hand. Would he feel sadness, knowing that his ‘son’ had intended to take the drug? What an amusing thought.

“You ratted me out to Bruce then.” It was more an observation than a question. “That’s rather bold.” Jason dropped from the bar and stepped up to the pommel horse, watching Tim take a nervous step back. “Tell me, Timbers. What did you think I was going to do with the pills?” He hoisted himself onto the horse and swung his legs around so that he was sitting comfortably, facing his prey.

“I… I don’t—”

“What if I’d used some old street connections to get my hands on some? What if I’d just planned to give Batman the sample that he’d been struggling so hard to get his hands on?”

Tim swallowed hard. “Then you would have already done so.”

Jason’s smile deepened.

“And since I didn’t? Tell me what sort of devious plan could be going through my head. By all means.”

“Jay!”

Jason rolled his eyes and took a firm hold of the handles on the pommel horse, swinging himself around a couple of times before straightening up into a handstand so that he was looking back at Dick as he approached. “Look, I’m sorry about what Bruce said. He should have considered who he was talking t—”

To Tim’s surprise, Dick closed the distance between them and stole a kiss while Jason was still upside down. When he pulled away Jason did his best to come down without injuring himself. “What was that for?”

“Bruce knows,” he said flatly. “You’re eighteen. I’m done pretending you’re just my little brother. I’m done letting him have his way.”

This was getting a little out of hand.

Jason glanced back at the utterly shocked Tim and sighed. “I wasn’t keeping it a secret because I was young,” he mumbled. “Don’t jump to conclusions.”

Dick nodded. “I know. I just… I can’t keep pretending this isn’t what it is. I hope you’ll understand.” He looked at Tim and smiled. “Sorry to surprise you like that. I’m heading back to Bludhaven. Call me if you guys need anything.”

And he left them just like that.

Jason wiped his mouth and looked at Tim, gauging his reaction. “Bruce thinks I’m his son. Dick thinks I’m his. Tell me, Timbers. What are YOU to them?”

Tim shuddered and kept his eyes trained on Jason as he left the gym.

*

Being banned from patrol proved to make Jason’s tasks even easier. Alfred didn’t dare prevent him from leaving the manor, feeling that Jason still had every right to his own freedom. He all but encouraged Jason to leave the mansion, always hopeful that there was more out there for them than just the vigilante life.

Old man had no idea.

“I missed you so much, Pudding!”

Duela’s chosen pet names for Jason weren’t as charming as she thought they were.

“Right. I need you to suspend your plans tomorrow. It’s time to make a statement.” He handed her the latest batch of the drug and her eyes widened with fascination. “They’re your color,” she commented, admiring the crimson red pills.

“Black’s a little too dark for me,” he mumbled, taking out his phone. He sent a text to Dick’s personal line.

[Sorry for my reaction today. You caught me off guard. Can we talk? Lunch tomorrow at the Caspian Café at the edge of Haven. I can be there at eleven.]

“You want me to spread the new product?” Duela asked, tucking the pills into her cleavage. It was ironic. Dressed in black leather like she was, she looked more like her mother than ever. And as much as she obsessed with being the ‘Black Joker’ in the deck, it just further solidified her connection to her father as well. Red was too flashy for Batman. His sidekicks could wear it, but it only made them easier targets.

Or greater distractions.

“No, that’s a special batch.” He handed her a paper with two addresses written on it. “There’s a lovely couple. Parents to a certain friend of mine. They hurt him like Harvey hurt you.”

Duela ground her teeth, though a smile remained on her face. “That so? No worries, Red. I’ll make them know just how loved they are.”

Duela wasn’t good at the whole subtlety thing. Helena might have understood. She was always the more reasonable one.

“I need them alive,” Jason told her. “Teach them a lesson, sure, but bring them to that second address. There’s a funhouse at the abandoned amusement park. Keep them there for me. Give them each a pill only when I tell you to. Understood?”

Duela rolled her eyes but leaned in close and nuzzled just under his chin. “Anything for you, Mister Jay. Bring them to the funhouse tomorrow. Sounds like a great time.”

“That’s my girl.” Three words and he could have her purring in his arms. How perfect…or it would be if only it was Helena.

But Duela would do.

As she skipped off to wreak havoc in Gotham before setting off on her task, Jason’s phone vibrated. He picked it up and smiled at Dick’s reply.

[Of course. I’ll be there. Thank you for reaching out.]

It was all too easy. Tim may have forced his hand, but he would learn that he’d made a mistake. He’d pay dearly for his brilliance. No one had ever caught on to Jason’s true nature, after all. He couldn’t let the hero who finally had go unpunished.

A couple temporary sim cards from the superstore, a couple burner phones from the pawn shop, and a couple adjustments from a black-market tech peddler and Jason had a couple burner phones that were virtually untraceable (except by the Bat-Computer, of course). Tailing the phones themselves wouldn’t cause any problems. After all, he only needed them to lead Batman around.

The items needed to create a bomb were almost comical to retrieve. He was able to pick up all that he needed at the superstore as well, along with thick metal some cord, a couple pad locks, a digital camera, a cheap television, and a speaker system. Put it all together and the store clerk wouldn’t even bat an eye. This was going to be too easy.

*

Meeting with Dick went about as well as Jason had planned.

Dick was desperate to talk. He wanted to discuss their relationship like they had never done before. Establish things. Get a better understanding. Finally alleviate the guilt of screwing an underaged kid, Jason figured, though he had been the one screwing Dick over the whole time. 

Jason listened to Dick drawl on and on.

Dick wanted a relationship. He didn’t want to force Jason into anything. He didn’t want Jason to feel the need to take sides.

Dick had a rather firm grasp at what he had done and how wrong it was. Jason couldn’t help but smile, knowing that if Dick had just listened to his conscience, he might have stayed safe from all of this.

“You never forced me into anything,” Jason said in his gentlest voice. He’d made sure Dick sat next to him at the booth rather than across from him. It allowed him to corner his prey and keep him close. “I should have considered how this would affect you. I’m sorry.” He leaned in for a kiss and slipped the pill he’d been hiding under his tongue all the way to the back of Dick’s throat. Dick choked for a moment and Jason apologized for being too aggressive, handing him the soda he’d ordered. Dick gulped it down without a second thought.

People around them started to whisper and gossip about the public display of affection, making Dick’s face turn red. “What’s their problem? It’s the twenty-first century, damnit.”

Jason shrugged. “We ARE at a popular place in the middle of lunchtime. Even if they’re not homophobic, PDA makes people uncomfortable.

“Oh. You have a… a point.” Dick tried to stand up but stumbled, knocking against the table. “We should just… We should…”

Jason caught him and looked to their audience apologetically on their way out, all the while trying not to roll his eyes over how stupid their collective discomfort was.

Dick scoffed and put all his weight against Jason. “You’re so rrrrr’lie-ble…”

He was fading fast.

Jason hauled Dick out of the café and slipped him into the car he’d stolen to get there. It was almost time.

*

Tim didn’t mind doing patrols solo. In fact, with Jason sidelined he felt just a bit more relaxed. After all, Bruce had him work with the Red Robin more often than with Batman. Jason always made Tim’s jaw set. The guy was hiding something. He just couldn’t place what.

Of course, there wasn’t much to do but listen to the police scanner and handle small-time crooks. If anything big like Penguin or Deathstroke came in, he’d report it to Bruce right away. No need to take unnecessary risks.

{We’ve got reports of a break in at… street… fifth floor apartment…}

Tim froze.

{No bodies present. Possible kidnapping.}

Tim was grappling through the city at top speed to the given address: his own apartment. He sneaked in the window as officers were leaving the scene and was horrified by what he found. It looked like a hurricane had passed through. Overturned furniture, broken glass, clear signs of a struggle…

Someone had taken his parents.

He took out his communicator, fully intending to call in the cavalry in for this one, but there was a message already there.

{Missing someone? Come find them at the old Amusement Mile funhouse! If you tell Batman, I’ll know, and you’ll be coming to pick up 2 corpses. You have 1 hour, little bird.}

Tim traced the message to a phone under an obvious alias, located at Amusement Mile.

He couldn’t risk his parents. He had become Robin out of a strong sense of justice, but he never wanted his parents to suffer for it. Had he been too naïve? He should have stayed out of it all. Batman already had a Robin. Maybe Jason wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t have anything to lose. Tim had too much.

The journey to the abandoned amusement park took the majority of the hour he’d been given. One more minute wasted could prove fatal.

He ran into the funhouse and was met with a strange girl dressed in black leather. Somehow, that wasn’t who he was expecting.

“Hey there, little birdie! Nice of you to join us!”

She hoisted a carnival mallet over her shoulder and came at him swinging. He managed to duck in time, but someone else leapt between them and kicked him hard in the stomach, throwing him back. Mercifully the Robin armor had absorbed some of the impact, but it had been a steel-toed boot that nailed him, and he worried that it may have cracked a rib. Not ideal conditions to keep up a fight.

“That looks like it hurts a little, Timbers.”

Tim shuddered. He straightened up a bit, arm hooked around his stomach, and faced his opponent. 

This time, it was who he expected.

Jason was wearing the Red Robin armor, only the R had been replaced with an upside-down bat symbol that had been repurposed to look like a toothy smile. Rather than a cape, he wore a brown leather jacket, and rather than the skintight armored leggings that came with the Robin suit, he wore cargo pants that were crisscrossed with holsters for guns and sheaths for knives.

Tim didn’t have to ask what Jason was doing there. Just seeing him confirmed his greatest fears. “Where are they?” he asked gravely.

“Oh, no accusations? No threats? You see why you’re so boring, Timbers? Bruce would have laid out every violent thing he’d plan to do to me if I didn’t give him what he wanted. Dick would have been begging me for answers. But you? You’re so…serious.” The playful smile on Jason’s face was unsettling. Had Tim ever seen him REALLY smile before?

“Please. They have nothing to do with any of this!”

Jason scoffed. “Are you kidding? Joker, dear, if you would.”

The girl in black tossed her hair back and stepped over to a rope tied to an anchor point. She untied it, gave it a tug, then let go. Tim’s heart leapt into his throat upon seeing his parents falling from high enough that they’d be seriously injured upon impact. “STOP!”

The girl caught the rope and—much to Tim’s surprise—was able to stop it dead with his parents just a foot from the ground. Their arms were bound at the wrists and held over their heads. They’d been tied together. They stirred, crying out in pain as their arms protested the sudden jolt. Tim’s mother locked eyes with him and sobbed. “Sweetie, it’s going to be okay. Robin’s here. Robin will save us.”

The girl tied off the rope, keeping them just a little suspended, and picked her mallet back up, giving it a couple of practice swings as she ambled over to her captives. Tim readied a few robi-rangs, but a bullet tore through his right wrist before he could throw them. He shouted in pain and looked to Jason, who kept a gun trained on him.

“Would you believe that was my first time shooting this thing?” Jason said in a song-songy, mocking tone. “Always had a knack for picking up on things. But you know all about that.”

“What do you want?” Tim asked, holding his bloody wrist shakily. “Please! Just let them go!”

“Aw, I want them to know why this is happening for starters. What do you say, little bird? Why not take that mask off? I’ll have my assistant turn them a little so they can get a good look at you.”

Tim swallowed a lump in his throat and reached up to peal his domino mask off. His mother sobbed harder upon seeing his face. The woman in black proceeded to spin them around slowly so that his father could get an eye-full as well.

“Oh god, Tim. What have you done?”

Tim grabbed his communicator, but Jason shot it out of his hand. “Tsk tsk. Can’t call in the cavalry yet. The show’s only just begun.” Jason slipped a crowbar from behind his back and walked over to Tim. He pressed the curved end under his chin and leaned in close. “You’re welcome to fight back, Timbers, but I can’t promise my associate won’t get upset and take her frustrations out on those parents of yours. You know, her father was pretty abusive. Liked to hurt her. I’m sure she’d love to return the favor.”

Tim’s jaw set. He tried to brace himself as Jason pulled the crowbar back like he would a baseball bat, leveling it with Tim’s stomach.

“Do me a favor and scream while you still can, okay?”

*

“Sir! Urgent message coming in!” Alfred looked worried. It had been a couple of days since they’d heard from Dick, which usually made the old butler antsy, but Bruce chalked that up to the lad still being upset over their little spat. He’d get over himself eventually. Always did.

“What’s wrong?” Bruce was in the cave, using the infirmary to test the drug Jason had procured and working on an antidote for its effects. He’d been at it for days with no success. The components that had gone into the drug weren’t easy to get ahold of either. Its creator would have to had to have access to quite the well-stocked facility.

“S-sir!”

Hearing the shaking in Alfred’s voice, Bruce abandoned his project and rushed to the main computer. What he saw shook him to his core.

[Ladies and gentlebats! Welcome to the show!]

The voice sounded mechanic. No doubt synthesized to hide the owner’s identity. And the person behind the voice was holding the camera in question, pointing it at Tim, who was bound to a wooden chair. His head was down, blood dripping into his lap, Robin suit torn in a few places where deep cuts could be seen, and shaggy black hair was caked to the blood on his head. They could hear his labored breathing, betraying the possibility of a collapsed lung.

[Here’s our star, the latest Robin in your crazy little crusade. Tell me, Batsy. Why DO they wear such bright colors? It can’t be for stealth. After all, I could just shoot this little bird right out of the sky!]

A bullet whizzed through Tim’s left shoulder and he choked out an agonized scream.

Bruce’s hands were flying over the keyboard, trying to trace the call.

[He’s not the only bird I’ve caught today, but I thought you’d like to see him chirp the most. He doesn’t belong with you, after all. No real tragedy to mar his childhood. Well, maybe it’s time we fix that?] The camera turned to show Mr. and Mrs. Drake strung up with a girl clad in black leather leaning against them. [Go ahead, Black. It’s time.]

[Yessir, Pudding Pop!] The girl stood up on her toes and forced a red pill into Mr. Drake’s mouth. She then slapped a hand over his mouth and plugged his nose with the other, waiting until he was flailing from lack of oxygen before letting go. She proceeded to do the same to Mrs. Drake, waiting just a little longer that time as if to taunt them.

[That’s the latest batch of Joker Drug. If you think the Black Pills were bad, ha! You’re going to love the Red.]

The Drakes started to laugh as the camera focused back on Tim. He was looking at his parents now. No mask to hide his identity. His right eye was swollen shut. His lip split in many places. He tried to call out, but the man behind the camera threw a crowbar at Tim, nailing him in the sternum and thoroughly shutting him up.

Alfred gasped next to Bruce, forcing him back to reality.

[Better hurry up, Batman. I only have so many birds to play with.]

And the feed cut out.

Bruce pulled his cowl on and ran straight to the Batmobile.

“Sir!”

“I have a lock on a location! Contact me if they get in touch again!”

Bruce drove the Batmobile faster than ever before; tearing through the streets and straight through traffic. Someone was after his family. His Robins. He had to get there in time. No, he had to get there before anything more could happen to them. Before Tim could see his parents fall victim to the drug.

How could he not know that Tim was in danger?

[Master Bruce, I have confirmed. Master Jason isn’t present at the manor,] Alfred’s worried tone rang over the Batmobile’s speakers. [You don’t think this Joker and her partner could have him as well?]

“We can’t rule anything out,” Bruce said through ground teeth. The trace had him heading to the Bludhaven bay.

The drive would normally have taken about an hour with traffic. With the Batmobile racing through the streets it took only ten minutes. Bruce ejected the moment he arrived at the source of the call: a quiet shipping warehouse. He hurried inside. “Robin!”

“B-Bruce?”

Not the voice he’d anticipated. His cowl automatically switched to night vision as he stepped into the dark hull of the abandoned warehouse and found a single stool in the middle of the open area with Dick standing on it. Dick’s toes barely brushed to surface of the stool. With his arms bound behind his back and a metal cord looped around his neck to keep him up, he wasn’t getting enough oxygen and was in a constant state of panic. The red marks under the cord hinted at how long Dick had been stuck like that.

Bruce cut him down and he collapsed into his mentor’s arms. “I don’t know what happened,” Dick said quickly between gasps of air. “Jay and I were…Oh god… Where’s Jason?”

“Who left you like this?” Bruce asked quickly. Dick would have had to be conscious when they strung him up or he’d have hanged himself.

“S-some girl in black.” Dick rasped.

Bruce cut the cord around Dick’s wrists and noticed something. Dick held up a flip phone and explained, “She gave me this. Told me to press the button when the phone rang or else she’d… We have to find Jason. He’s in danger!”

Bruce examined the phone and confirmed his worst fears. He plugged his compact computer into it and uploaded the data.

“It was a pre-recorded message,” he whispered.

“What was?” Dick stood on his own two feet and looked at Batman imploringly. “Bruce, what’s going on?”

Batman was being led by the nose.

“Tim and Jason are in danger. We don’t have time to waste. Are you hurt?”

“Nothing that’ll keep me down.”

They returned to the Batmobile and Bruce drove them back into Gotham while the origin of the recorded message was traced. This time it led to Amusement Mile. He could only hope there were no more tricks in store for them there.

Dick—practiced at the process—donned a spare Nightwing costume in the seat next to Bruce, equipping himself with whatever weapons were available.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said.

“For what? It’s not like you strung me up.

“I didn’t check in with you. Didn’t find it strange that you didn’t check in with me. I should have known better.”

“It’s not every day that I get drugged at a café,” Dick pointed out. “Shit. You think that Joker chick knows who Jason and I are? She was able to find us there…”

“She has a mysterious associate. They have Tim and his parents as well.”

“Shit! How were we so unprepared for this?”

Bruce felt his stomach twist. How COULD they be so thoroughly caught off guard? It wasn’t right. Gotham’s villains weren’t that well organized. Not to mention they had to set up a direct link with the Bat Computer, which meant they knew where the cave was.

This all felt wrong.

They pulled up on Amusement Mile and followed the locator into the funhouse. Upon throwing the door open they were overwhelmed with the stench of rotting wood, mold, and blood.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” Bruce warned.

“I won’t let them get away with this,” Dick growled. It was only natural for him to be so protective, but Bruce worried that his concern would make him sloppy. Hell, he felt his own concern might trip them up as well.

They made their way through the childish maze until they came upon a slanted room with unmistakably fresh fluorescent pain on the walls.

“Well, whatcha think? Pudding and I were thinking about making this our lil’ love nest!” The woman in black cartwheeled into the light and swung a mallet at Nightwing, who managed to flip out of the way and nail the handle with a couple of wing-dings that exploded on impact. However, with the dramatic slant in the floor wasn’t factored into his actions and he wound up slamming into a wall. “Ah! No fair! You’re supposed to be hanging back at Bloody-haven! I thought for sure you’d’ve tripped! Heehee! Could you imagine the look on Batsy’s face if he’d found his big birdy swinging around like that?”

The girl danced about the room with practiced grace in spite of the grievous slant, but Bruce was having none of this. He had to find Tim and Jason. This girl was no doubt the one who had been peddling the strange Black Pill, but she wasn’t the priority and he was losing his patience.

Bruce shot a grappling line low to the floor and released a couple of batarangs. The girl went to flip out of the way but her hand got caught on the line, messing up her up. She fell into a clumsy roll and Nightwing brought down a punch hard enough to knock her out cold with one blow.

“I’ll tie her up. Go find them!” Dick insisted.

Bruce didn’t waste time arguing. He hurled himself through the next door and through the next couple of rooms before coming upon the true horror show.

Tim was lying on the remains of a demolished wooden chair to Bruce’s right. To his left were Mr. and Mrs. Drake. They’d clawed their own faces bloody and were completely motionless with impossibly large smiles on their sickly pale faces.

“Robin!”

Bruce rushed to Tim’s side and immediately checked for a pulse. Upon touching the boy’s neck, Tim started coughing out mouthfuls of blood. He was in critical condition, but he was alive.

“Oh god, Tim. I’m so sorry.”

“OH, COME ON! IT’S ONLY NATURAL! HE’S FINALLY BEEN INDOCTRINATED INTO YOUR HAPPY LITTLE BAT-FAMILY! YOU KNOW THE RULE: NO PARENTS ALLOWED!”

The voice, loud and altered, echoed through the room. Bruce tried to pinpoint its origin and spotted a shadow darting behind different fixtures.

“HE’S QUITE THE LITTLE DETECTIVE, THAT ROBIN! ALMOST HAD ME FIGURED OUT. TOO BAD, THOUGH. IF HE’D JUST KEPT HIS BEAK SHUT, MAYBE THIS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED.”

Bruce fought back the bloodlust. This was worse than when he’d lost Selina. His family was in danger. This was a personal attack.

The attacker would pay.

Bruce released a slew of batarangs that would prevent the assailant from leaving the cover of the fixture they’d chosen. He left Tim in order to launch a frontal attack on the menace. But the assailant ducked right into the line of fire, let the blades hit his jacket, and threw a knife that actually managed to cut through the Batman armor and lodge itself into Bruce’s shoulder.

This person knew too much about the batsuit. About Batman’s sidekicks. About Batman’s hideout. They were too dangerous. Maybe even too dangerous to be kept alive.

“Batman I—oh god!” Nightwing joined them only to rush over to Tim in a panic.

“AHH, NOW IT’S A PARTY! LET’S GET THE LAST BIRD IN ON THIS, SHALL WE?” The assailant went barreling through the door to the next part of the funhouse while shouting, “CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!”

“Get Tim out of here!” Bruce demanded, chasing after the assailant.

“Right! Save Jay! Please!”

Bruce had no intention of losing anyone that night. This clown would pay.

The next room was a maze of mirrors. In the reflection of many, he could see a cheap television sitting on a chair.

“YOU’RE MAKING THIS TOO EASY, BRUCE.”

He knew Batman’s identity.

“WHILE YOU’RE SEARCHING, LET ME TELL YOU A LITTLE STORY ABOUT A BAT, A CAT, AND AN INNOCENT LITTLE GIRL.”

Papers showered over the whole room (or just over him? Bruce could hardly tell with the mirrors). He wanted to ignore them, but they were copies of a handwritten note and, for a brief moment he saw the pawprint signature that Selina used to sign her letters with. He caught one of the papers out of the air and read it.

It was the suicide note that was never found.

-

To my dearest Bat,

You have a daughter.

I was too scared to tell you and too scared to abort her, so I put her up for adoption. I only wanted to give her a better life than I had, and I couldn’t ask you to do that for her. Not when I didn’t even know who you were under the mask.

I’ve just learned our little girl was adopted by a monster. The things he’s done to her…All this time that’s all she’s known, and it’s all my fault. I can’t live with myself. I know this. But you can still save her. Please save our little girl. She’s not hard to find. Helena Dent. This is why it has to be you. Who else can expose the mayor?

I know you’ll never forgive me for this, but I don’t care as long as Helena is safe.

-

“YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE LOOK ON HER FACE WHEN I SHOWED HER WHAT HAD BEEN DONE TO HER DAUGHTER.”

“You’re lying!” It couldn’t be real. They was just trying to get under Bruce’s skin. Selina never…

More papers fluttered from above. Bruce caught one with a picture and felt his heart sink. It was a copy from a case file for a ‘Helena Dent (formerly Helena Kyle)’. It detailed when she had been born. When she bad been adopted. And it proceeded to list the injuries that she had come to the social workers with and how they indicated domestic abuse. The picture on the document was of a young girl with jet black hair and icy blue eyes. She looked a little like her mother if Selina had been forced to play dollhouse.

“SHE ENDURED THIS FOR YEARS. MAYOR DENT WOULD JUST MAKE IT ALL DISAPPEAR. SHE WAS HIS LITTLE CAMPAIGN SWEETHEART, AFTER ALL.”

The television clicked on and recorded screams filled the room. Images of Helena resisting as Harvey Dent threw her down and…

Bruce couldn’t breathe.

“HE DESTROYED HER. FRACTURED HER MIND. THIS WAS ALL SHE KNEW. HER MOTHER GAVE HER TO THE DEVIL. THE MAN SHE CALLED ‘FATHER’ WAS THE MAN WHO BEAT HER, TORTURED HER, AND RAPED HER.”

“Please.” Bruce stumbled along the mirrors, desperate to shut the television off.

“I KNEW SHE WAS SPECIAL THE FIRST TIME I SAW HER. KNEW I HAD TO MAKE HER MINE. PROTECT HER FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HURT HER.”

The cries for help felt like talons latching onto Bruce’s heart. How could he invite that man to galas? How could he support that man’s campaign? All the while Dent was doing this to Helena…

…to Bruce’s own daughter…

“SHE MIGHT LOOK A LITTLE MORE FAMILIAR TO YOU NOW, THOUGH. IMAGINE HER IN BLACK LEATHER. NOT UNLIKE HER MOTHER, ACTUALLY.”

The woman in black…

“IT’S CRAZY. THE FIST BATCH OF MY DRUG INTERACTED WITH THE DRUGS ALREADY IN HER SYSTEM AND ALTERED HER BRAIN CHEMISTRY. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? PAIN BECAME PLEASURE. IT BROUGHT A SMILE TO HER FACE. AND SO SHE WANTED TO SHOW HER FATHER JUST HOW HAPPY HE MADE HER.”

Harvey Dent’s mysterious murderer. No one had known where his daughter had disappeared to. They all assumed she’d been killed.

“IT’S OKAY THOUGH.” Finally, the assailant stepped in front of the television, their image now reflecting in the mirrors, their altered voice echoing in the room right along with Helena’s screams. “I’LL MAKE HER THE HAPPIEST GIRL ALIVE.”

The cowl’s lenses located a heat signature and Bruce crashed through a mirror tackling the monster on the other side. The television broke under them, mercifully silencing the screams, and Bruce began pulverizing the one behind it all.

Bruce pounded on the red helmet hiding their face until his knuckles were bleeding through his gauntlets and the damned thing was collapsing inward. He threw them through mirror after mirror and continued to beat them, desperate to satisfy the need for blood. This monster who had taken everything from him. Who had every intention of harming his already damaged child. They’d destroyed Bruce’s family. Had shown Bruce family he’d never even known and assured him that she would never get the help she needed.

They took Selina away. They hid her suicide note. They killed Tim’s parents. All these things.

“W-wait… Bruce…”

No. No more waiting. They had to die. It wasn’t Batman’s way, but right now it wasn’t Batman who was beating them.

A gloved hand reached towards Bruce’s face, catching the cowl and pushing it back. Seeing the distorted reflection of himself holding his conquered enemy in order to continue pummeling him made Bruce lose it.

He was protecting his family.

He was just doing what he had to.

Bruce caught the gloved hand before it could fall, but the glove slipped off. Underneath was a familiar scar.

“No.”

“What were you expecting, Bruce?”

Bruce ripped the helmet from the assailant’s head and fought back an angry shout.

Looking up at him, beaten and bloodied by his own hands, was Jason. The young man he’d taken in years ago. The boy who he had come to see as his own son.

“Why?”

Jason laughed and choked on a bit of blood. “Because you thought you were better. Batman; Gotham’s hero. The man who is above the law and beyond it. You’re no better than me or Ma Gunn or the Penguin, Scarecrow, Scarface, Dollmaker. You’re not even any better than Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent.

“And it was the easiest thing to be who you thought you needed.” Jason sputtered and Bruce released him so that they were standing on even ground. Jason wiped his bloody nose on the sleeve of his jacket and smiled. “Everything is too simple. People are simple. Anyone can be manipulated and lied to and smile through it all, blissfully ignorant of the danger just under their nose.”

“Dick…”

“Far too idealistic. He’s in love with you, you know,” Jason jeered. “I can’t say it was easy to fill that void, but it was easy to use it. Make him believe he wanted the replacement more than the real thing. Then, when it was time, just slip him something with an innocent little kiss. He never stood a chance.

“I strung him up personally. Maybe under different circumstances he might have seen it as romantic. My voice modifier was enough to convince him that someone else was behind it all. Then a little threat to his beloved Jason and he’d follow any order. I almost told him that I’d spare Jason if he jumped off the stool, but that would have just been wasteful.”

Of course Bruce knew how Dick felt. Dick had grown into an adult at the manor. Bruce could see the longing looks and had felt the lingering touches. Of course he loved Dick, but never the way that Dick wanted. That had been one of the main reasons he pushed Dick away.

“Tim…”

“Oh, you were so taken with him.” Jason laughed to himself. “I’ve got to say, he fascinates me too. I’ve spent years right in front of you and you didn’t even so much as notice the real me. But him? He knew before even joining us. He never believed the lies that I spun. Given another week, he might have done something about me. Given another year, I think he’d make a fine Batman. Of course, Dick should probably get him to the hospital first. I tried not to leave anything permanent, but without help soon, kid won’t make it through the night.”

Bruce got off of Jason and turned to leave.

“Ah, hold on. My game isn’t done yet.”

“I have to get Tim out of here.”

“Again, you’re looking to help the wrong person.” Jason pulled a device from his pocket and pressed the button on the top of it. A distant beeping denoted a countdown. “This funhouse is going to be reduced to burning rubble in five minutes. If Tim and Dick are in the Batmobile, they’ll withstand the blast. Helena, on the other hand…”

Bruce closed his eyes. “I can still save her.”

“Maybe. But I know every weak point in your armor, both literal and figurative.” Jason raised a gun and leveled it with Bruce’s head. “It’s time to step down. Let someone else wear the cowl. Your time is over.”

“I’m not just going to—”

“If you make it out of here alive, I’ll kill her. Maybe not today, but I’ll have the rest of my life to make yours a living hell. You’ll always be looking over your shoulder, and she already does. It’s no life.”

The threat hung thick in the air.

“If you stay behind and become ash with the rest of this place, I’ll let her live.”

“A life at your side is no life for her.”

“Oh, I know. And just think, Dick and Tim will never know who she is to you!” Jason pointed out. “She’ll go on, my little Black Joker, and they’ll clash with her again and again. Your own flesh and blood will be tossed into Arkham by the family you chose over her.”

“Or you’ll kill her.”

Jason smirked. “Yeah, that’s the idea. And you’ll have to go on knowing that it was your fault. You couldn’t save Selina. Can you live with letting Helena die?”

Bruce dropped to his knees. “We’re wasting time.”

Jason’s smile deepened. “I applaud your decision. I’ll take good care of them.”

Bruce fought back the tears. “Maybe Tim IS the better detective. Someday he’ll outsmart you. He’ll outdo you.”

“I look forward to the challenge.”

“Goodbye…son.”

*

Dick stayed at Tim’s bedside as much as he could. After losing Bruce, he moved into the manor permanently, finally abandoning his crappy Bludhaven apartment. Tim’s parents’ corpses were recovered from the scene of the explosion as well as Bruce’s. No sign of the assailant or the woman in black. The Jokers had done the impossible: they’d defeated Batman.

No… they’d killed him.

Dick had taken Tim to the hospital that night and rushed back to the manor to alert Alfred only to find a bloodied Jason already there. As they’d feared, he had been hurt as well, but he made it out. He was unusually timid, though. Dick had tried to embrace him, but he withered away from the touch and closed himself off. Something had happened. Everything had changed.

Tim awoke with a start two days after surgery. He immediately reached his unbroken arm to his face, prying at the metal hardware on his head.

“Easy, easy. Your jaw was dislocated and broken in a few places. They had to reset it and wire it shut,” Dick explained.

Tim’s eyes bore into Dick, trying to ask hundreds of questions all at once. The dark circles under his eyes answered most.

“I’m so sorry. When we found you, your parents were already…”

Tim exhaled deeply. He knew. Jason had made him watch as their minds deteriorated. Tears burned his eyes.

“And… I got you out of there but… Bruce never…”

Tim closed his eyes and the tears slipped out.

“I’m just so glad that you guys are okay. Jay still looks a little beat up, but the other Joker didn’t do nearly as much to him as he did to you.”

Tim’s eyes shot open. The heart monitor spiked, alerting nearby staff. Dick hopped up from his chair in a panic. “What’s wrong? Tim? Oh god! Jay, something’s happening!”

Tim’s eyes locked on the figure now leaning casually in the doorway; a sinister smile on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“His heart rate is dangerously high! Mr. Drake. We’re going to give you a sedative. It will calm you down. Let you sleep.”

He was trapped. It was like being right back in that funhouse; feeling the dull ache in his chest while his head tried to process the images that he was seeing.

Jason was there.

His parents were not.

Jason was there.

Bruce was not.

The sedative ripped Tim’s consciousness from him forcefully, pulling him back into the darkness of that dimly lit room. Unable to move. Unable to protect himself. Unable to do anything but watch. Watch his parents writhe in a deadly fit of laughter. Watch the girl in black as she looked to Jason with absolute adoration in her eyes. Watch Jason take another swing.

*

When Tim awoke next it was like the nightmare wouldn’t stop. Dick was asleep in the window, leaning against the very man who had put Tim in the hospital.

Jason was wide awake.

“I’m glad you’re still alive,” Jason said in such a soft voice that it almost didn’t sound real. “I don’t say this about people; but I like you, Timbers. You’re the second person to really see me.”

Tim kept his breathing steady. This was going to be a one-sided conversation no matter what. There was nothing to do but listen and wait.

“Helena was the first, and she was something else. Saw through me, even. But the world around her was just a little darker, so she allowed herself to be taken with me. It’s a shame that she couldn’t take the strain of my drug. Killed her own father and was lost to the confines of her own mind.”

Jason slinked one hand around Dick’s head, cupping it over his nose and mouth. Dick’s eyes opened wide and it was all Tim could do to press the nurse call button repeatedly.

“Grayson never saw the real me. Kind of sad, really. Such terrible taste in men.” Jason stood up and Dick slumped in the windowsill, paralyzed in shock and pain. Tim could see blood dripping from the jagged blade in Jason’s hand before he tucked it away.

“It was nice to see you, Tim. I’m sure we’ll do this dance again soon.”

Tim watched in silent horror as Jason walked right past the rushing nurses who came upon the bloody scene.


	4. Epilogue/Prologue - Plans for a Darker Tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim Drake: Batman
> 
> Dick Grayson: Oracle
> 
> Barbara Gordon: Nightwing
> 
> Duela/Helena Dent: The Black Joker
> 
> Jason Napier: The Red Joker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END!
> 
> I mean, not really, but technically! This chapter gives you a little insight to how things are after Bruce's passing and paves the way for how this will connect into Probation.

Later Alfred would tell them that Jason had taken a number of resources from the Batcave.

Later the surgeon would tell them that the damage to Dick’s spine would leave him paralyzed from the waist down.

Later the Wayne manor would be retrofitted for wheelchair access.

And eventually, Tim would don the cowl.

[I’ve got the drop on Black, but there’s still no sign of Red. She could be working independently again. There have been signs of him neglecting her.]

“He doesn’t care about her,” Dick corrected as he uploaded Barbara’s location to the Batmobile so that Tim could catch up. “He’s insane. He only cares about his stupid game.”

[Easy there, tiger. You’re letting him get to you again.]

Barbara Gordon was the daughter of the only cop in Gotham that Dick and Bruce had ever fully trusted. She was a staunch believer in Batman’s crusade, so it hardly came as a surprise when she inserted herself into the vigilante life. But the moment she wore a bat symbol on her chest was the moment Tim nearly lost it.

No more sidekicks.

Dick could sympathize, but Barbara was stubborn. So he sat her down one day and told her a story about a Red Robin and how he had beaten Batman. When she refused to back down, he passed his own Nightwing mantle to her and offered to help her from afar.

“Sorry. What I’m saying is that Black works mostly independent from Red. He’s the Joker. She’s just collateral damage. You should be in the clear.”

[Drinks later once I’ve got Black behind bars?]

“If you actually nab her, I’ll crack open something from the Wayne private reserve.”

*

Being with Jason was like being trapped in a lion’s den. Something about him scared Duela in a visceral, physical way. He was dangerous. She knew that better than anyone. And even though he scared her, she loved him. Even though he hurt her, she loved him. That was all there was to it.

“Dee, you should just leave that guy.”

Yet another night Duela found herself at Poison Ivy’s mercy. The alluring woman was older than her but had for some reason taken a liking to her. Duela could never understand why the woman who’d sooner kill a person than blow the puff off a dandelion saw anything in her, but time and time again when she was left behind by her Mister Jay, Ivy was the one there to pick her up and get her back on her feet.

“You don’t understand, Ives.”

“You’d best believe I don’t.” Ivy stuck a Hello Kitty band-aid on Duela’s cheek before brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, leaving a pretty red orchid to hold the hair in place. Duela couldn’t deny that she adored these little things that Ivy did, but it didn’t change anything. “That man’s nothing but trouble. You’d do better striking out on your own.”

Duela took the flower out and admired the perfect red hue. “I’ve never been alone. Jason made sure of that.”

“He’s psychotic.”

“Says the woman who talks to plants.”

“Hey, I’m not the one with an actual split personality.”

Duela laid back on Ivy’s couch and sighed. “Helena’s been asleep for years. I’m starting to think it’s just me and my own little voices in this noggin. It’s fine, of course. She wouldn’t have the stomach for this. She was such a softy. She’s the one Dad liked. I was collateral damage that he blamed on the wrong medications.”

Ivy raked her fingers gently through Duela’s ebony locks. “Sweetheart, I’ve heard your whole sob story. It’s a tear-jerker, really. What I don’t get is why you went from one abusive man to the next.”

“Psychological deficiency probably. I tend to cling to a certain type of person. All girls got daddy issues, don’t they?”

Ivy sighed. “Maybe. I just wish you had a better life. Is that so wrong?”

“It’s a little weird. You’re like the worried mom I never had. Which begs the question, why do you care? Why not just leave me after Mister Jay’s heists go sideways? GCPD’s a buncha chumps, but they could always toss my skinny butt back in Arkham. Try to shock-therapy the crazy out of me again.”

“Arkham’s an inhumane joke. The only person who belongs there is Batman… and maybe Kite Man. What dumb-fuck bases their whole shtick off something kids play with on a windy day?” She willed a few vines to grow around her apartment, blooming flowers that opened to release soporific spores. Nothing that would knock Duela out, but enough to make her whole body relax. “You remind me of an old friend,” she said softly, continuing to stroke her hand through Duela’s hair. “I couldn’t protect her, so I want to do what I can to protect you.”

Duela inhaled deeply, letting the spores do what they could. “That’s sweet. But it’s okay. My pudding won’t let me die. I’m his treasure.”

“You’re a toy for when he’s bored.”

“Don’t be jelly, old lady. Just ‘cuz you’re an old spinster…”

Ivy flicked Duela’s nose and they laughed together.

The rumble of a nearby explosion made Duela sit up quickly. “Oops, that’s my cue.” She was off the couch and on her feet in no time.

“Honestly, how could you possibly know—”

“My man likes his movie staples. We thought it’d be fun to go out with a bang all Fight Club-like this week before we leave.” She adjusted her top and pulled her hair back into a high ponytail to keep it out of her face. She didn’t care one bit when the orchid dropped to the floor.

“Leave?”

“That’s right! Remember that cute little speedster that ran through Gotham last week? Oh, what was his name? Well, Mister Jay found that capturing the do-gooder was well worth it! Not only can those speedy-dudes run through time, but they rip holes in space too. Like those Boom Tubes, but right through reality.”

“Dee, that sounds dangerous.”

“Oh, it’s super unstable. But my man found more of himself! Can you believe it? Other Jokers who can help us to put a smile on everyone’s faces!”

“I don’t think you should go through with that. You might not make it back.”

Duela cracked the window to Ivy’s apartment and inhaled the burnt air just as excitedly as she had the plant’s spores. “That’s up to Jay. But it’s okay. He’ll protect me. He promised.”

Duela leapt from the window and rolled onto the rooftop of the lower building next door. She really did love Ivy, but she couldn’t risk the lion’s wrath.

On the way to their departure point, however, a grappling line wrapped around Duela’s foot, pulling her out of the air. She barely managed to brace against the impact as she slammed into the brick side of a building.

“What’s he planning, Black? You have three seconds to talk.”

Duela pulled the knife off her hip—one of Jason’s own design made specifically for dealing with Bats—and sliced herself free, landing with a thump on the fire escape Batman had her dangling over.

“Owww. Jerk! You could’ve killed me!”

“You’re lucky that’s not my policy. Now talk.”

“Or what, you’ll put me in time out? What am I, four?”

“This isn’t a game! What he’s doing is crossing the line!”

“Oh, he’s crossing a line NOW? Oh dear! I didn’t realize!” Duela picked herself up and stood ready for a fight. “Piss off, Bat-Fake. I’m getting real tired of this tango. Wouldn’t your old man want to slit my throat by now? You got more reason than most to ditch that do-gooder rule. C’mon. Take a walk on the wild-side.”

Batman lunged at her and she leapt right off the fire escape before taking her favorite weapon off her hip—a black leather whip with a heart-shaped blade at the end—and used it to shatter a window across the way and dive through. The poor residents of the shitty apartment didn’t stand a chance if they wanted to get in her way, but just in case, she made sure to slice a couple throats as she passed through, leaving Batman with a mess to clean up. She tore through to the apartments on the other side of the building and shattered another window to escape.

After that it was smooth sailing back to Jason’s latest base of operations in the nearby Jump City. She landed nimbly in the old lighthouse just a few feet behind him.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry. Nightwing thought she’d get a swing at me last night. Ives was patching me up, then Bat-Fake caught me on the way here.”

“Tim is a better Batman than Bruce ever was,” Jason mumbled as he fiddled with the customized Boom Tube.

“Aww, but he’s still just a copy. Not like you and me, of course. You’re Red, I’m Black, and we’re the Jokers!”

“Nnnngh!”

Duela shuddered as the redheaded speedster cried out in pain. Jason had kept him strapped to that same table for weeks now. It had been a real challenge for her to keep him alive, but if she let him die then Jason would have been mad at her. She didn’t want that. So, day after day she took care of the guy. Almost got fond of his futile pleas for mercy.

“Will he be okay?” she ventured to ask. “I mean, he’s been such a good prisoner. I thought that maybe we could just let him—”

“He’ll be lucky if this doesn’t destroy him on a molecular level. But what does that matter? You weren’t there to complete the scene tonight. You know I don’t like when you miss the climax.”

“I tried but—”

A hard slap across the face set her straight. She covered the place where he’d hit her and smiled. Even after all the ways she disappointed him, he still loved her so much.

{It hurts.}

That little voice again. Duela closed her eyes and willed it to be quiet.

{I’m scared. Don’t do this. Please.}

“NNNGGGAAAAAAAH!”

The speedster began vibrating in place until he vanished completely into a portal that Jason held open with the Boom Tube. “It’s time to go.”

{Please don’t.}

“Okay, Mister Jay. I’d go anywhere for you.”

“I know. Now come on. Let’s go put a smile on some faces.”


End file.
